
Class :SV_gi,5JL_. 

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COPnaGOT DEPOSIT 



Twice-Born Men in America 



OR 



The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a 
Christian Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work 



"^ HARRIEt/eARHART MONROE 



Also Author of •♦Conversation as a Science and an Art,' 

*« Heroine of the Mining Camp," ** Historical Luther- 

anism," "The Life of Gustavus Adolphus," and 

"Washington — Its Sights and Insights*' 



PHILADELPHIA, PA.: 

THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY 



N3 






Copyright, 1914, by 
HARRIET :eARHART MONROE 



."<0V 1 1 I914-'' 

©aU388337 



a 

^ PREFACE 

^ I taught psychology for fifteen years at the Atchison 
I Ck^ Institute, the predecessor of Midland College, located at 
Atchison, Kan. I was there greatly impressed by the 
fact that the books gave no adequate analysis of the 
psychology of the greatest mental and moral change 
which can come to the human mind, namely, conversion 
and regeneration; yet these changes make the great dif- 
ference which we see between men and nations. 

A Rescue Mission gives a great opportunity to study 
mental and moral changes, and my observations and con- 
clusions, made from years of study, are herein embodied. 

This book is sent forth with the earnest hope and 
prayer that it will lead many souls to Christ ; also that it 
will show earnest laymen just how to bring about that 
psychological change which we call conversion. A Sun- 
day school teacher who brings only ninety per cent of 
her students through the process of conversion and re- 
generation is ninety per cent a success and ten per cent 
failure. The same is true of a pastor with a class of cate- 
chumens. 

"Ye must be bom again," is just as true to-day as it 
ever was, and if we believed it as Paul believed it, 
what live wires we would be. 

This book is to remind us that Jesus saves to the utter- 
most in our day, just as He did when He visibly walked 
this earth. 

Harriet E. Monroe^ 
204 A Street, S. E., Washington, D. C. 
July 29, 1914. 

(iii) 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PACK 

How I Happened to Become Interested in Rescue Mission 
Work 7 

CHAPTER n 
Rescue Mission Work 22 

CHAPTER III 
Incidents Showing the Power of God to Save 29 

CHAPTER IV 
An Element of Humor in Rescue Work 36 

CHAPTER V 
How We Got a New Mission Buii^ding 49 

CHAPTER VI 
Big Feet 44 

CHAPTER VII 
Varieties of Work in a Gospei. Mission 59 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Need of Rescue Work 69 

CHAPTER IX 
The Penny Lunch and Free Dispensary 82 

(V) 



VI CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X 

PAGB 

The Power oe the Gospei, 94 

CHAPTER XI 
Hereditary Sin 107 



Twice-Born Men in America 



CHAPTER I 

How I Happened to Become Interested in Rescue 
Mission Work 

In January, 1908, a great calamity came to me in the 
form of destruction by fire of most of my earthly prop- 
erty and the death in the fire of a loved sister. The event 
had in it some other elements of great pain not necessary 
to mention here. If my soul had not been anchored in 
Jesus, the combination of sorrows would have broken 
down my mentality and sent me to the asylum. As it 
was, I stood steadily trusting God, knowing that all 
things worked together for good to those who love God. 
I was sure I was a lover of God, and so, while every fiber 
of my body and soul ached with unspeakable pain, I never 
doubted God's love, care and sympathy. 

In the midst of this grief I received a letter from Mr. 
George W. Wheeler, the President of the Executive 
Board of the Gospel Mission, saying about this, "Come 
down to the Gospel Mission, look it over and see if you 
care to come in with us in the work of saving souls. Un- 
less we secure a woman of large executive ability, our 
work can scarcely go forward." 

I answered that I would be glad to join them, and the 
next week, the first week of September, 1908, I received 

(7) 



8 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

a letter from the Secretary, S. M. Croft, saying I had 
been elected to the Executive Board of the Gospel Mis- 
sion, which met once every week. 

The following Monday I met with the Board, where I 
heard a letter from Mr. Tyson, saying that he withdrew 
from the Board because the dormitories were badly kept. 
Then followed a letter of the same kind from a Mr. 
Fritz, and another from Mr. Sidell. As soon as the ses- 
sion, which was largely a prayer service, was closed, Mr. 
Wheeler accompanied me to look over the dormitories. 

I never saw or dreamed of such conditions. The 
very walls were alive with vermin. In the story above 
the chapel were fifteen vile beds, and on the third story 
above us we saw a floor covered with dirty, wrinkled 
newspapers. I said, "Where do the men sleep?" "On 
the beds you saw in the third floor and on these news- 
papers." 

In my heart I said, "Dear Lord, surely not here, amid 
this vileness?" The answer was as sharp and distinct 
as though spoken through a trumpet, "Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord." 

"Mr. Wheeler," I said, "I see conditions, and I take 
charge." He left for his work in the United States 
Treasury, and I went to the street and hired a force of 
cleaners, whitewash men, scrubbers, sweepers, etc., and 
called up Mrs. Claude Myers, the wife of a Presbyterian 
minister, and two other fully consecrated women who 
were not afraid of work. I asked them to come at once 
and bring with them buckets, scrub brushes, rags, soap, 
etc., while I put in a supply of chemicals for the vermin. 

Those women helped to burn the bedding and to send 
away some as trash. They helped me clean the beds ; the 
whitewashers even entered into the spirit of it, and every 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK 9 

crack was filled with plaster of paris; they went over 
the walls three times with lime and carbolic acid. The 
Health Bureau in the Municipal Building gave me a 
preparation used on floors in jails and in hospitals for 
contagious diseases. Some redeemed men came to our 
help, and by Saturday night we turned over a clean 
house. 

Every one of us cleaners was obliged to go to the Turk- 
ish bath and have our clothing brushed and fumigated 
before we could go to our own homes. 

On Saturday evening I told Mr. Wheeler and Mr. 
Gordon that besides the good men and women who had 
helped us for the cause for five days, we had spent 
twenty-five dollars. Never will I forget the dismay of 
those two good men. "What! Twenty-five dollars! 
Where do you think we will get that?" I answered, 
"Fortunately I belong to a church that lives and works 
by faith, and to-morrow, being Sunday, I shall tell the 
Sunday school of the Luther Memorial Church, and 
we '11 see about that twenty-five dollars." 

The next morning I went to the pastor, Rev. J. G. 
Butler, D.D., and he secured permission from the super- 
intendent of the Sunday school for me to speak three 
minutes. The superintendent hated innovations, but I 
can say a lot in three minutes, especially when I state 
the needs of the lost men of the community. After the 
school was dismissed nearly every teacher and grown 
student gave me something, and in less than five minutes 
I had twenty-seven dollars. 

Sunday night I told what the Lord had done for us, 
and I began to ask all persons present to contribute 
sheets and pillow-cases. I did this so much and so often 
that season that a little four-year-old girl of Mrs. Claude 



lO TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Myers upset the gravity of an entire meeting by saying 
out loud one Sunday evening, "There comes Mrs. Sheets 
and Pillow-cases again." Well, before winter was over 
we had about fifty clean, well-equipped beds for which, 
when they had it, men gladly paid ten cents per night. If 
they did not have it, the beds were given as long as they 
lasted; but, after the beds were filled, often fifty men 
slept on the floor with only the boards under them and 
no covers. 

We had no heat in the dormitories, but one day Mrs. 
Richard Butler, a wealthy woman of the city, was or- 
dered by the Spirit to visit the Mission. She came by 
Mr. Gordon's office in her carriage and he took her 
through our building. She saw our first need was heat. 
She sent immediately to a hardware store and ordered a 
large stove for the third floor with a drum for the fourth 
story, and through her kindness the men were given heat, 
but not until after two deaths, caused by cold, hunger 
and wet clothing, had about broken our hearts. 

I remember a young, fair-haired man from Virginia, 
evidently well born and bred, coming in one night, 
slightly under the influence of liquor. It was a rainy, 
snowy night; his clothing was wet and he was suffering 
from a severe cold. When the meeting was over he 
started to go up stairs, which had nearly a zero tempera- 
ture. I begged him to stay by the fire and sleep on a 
bench, if needed, but he petulantly refused. He was 
dead by nine o'clock next morning. I had wept all the 
way hom.e, for I feared just what happened. 

Mrs. Butler's stove put an end to that. She furnished 
coal for the entire winter. 

Now that we had beds and heat, I saw we could not 
keep the beds clean without bathing facilities. So at our 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK II 

next Board meeting I said, "Brethren, we need a good 
shower-bath with warm and cold water so that men 
soiled and weary can have the comfort of a warm bath.'/ 
All the members of the Board demurred on account of 
the expense. Then I said, "Brethren, if I make myself re- 
sponsible for the eighty-five dollars needed and you are in 
no way held for it, may I have the bath put in at once ?" 
Of course, they wanted the bath, as they saw how much 
it was needed, and gave cordial consent. I purchased a 
rubber stamp, and on the outside of our first circulars 
which we issued I stamped the words, "I have made my- 
self personally responsible for the cost of a shower-bath. 
Help a little." And with my own contributions the bath 
was paid for as per contract. 

That fall we put out a circular folder, of which the 
following is the open letter, and is introduced only to 
give the continuity of this work so that my friends may 
know the aim, object and history of the Mission from the 
beginning : 

Gospel Mission^ 
1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. 
Washington, D. C. 
Dear Friend: 

Under the blessing of God and the guidance of the Holy 
Spirit, a Rescue Mission has been opened at No. 1230 Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue, N. W., where nightly gospel services will be con- 
ducted and the Lord Christ held up to view as a Saviour "mighty 
to save and strong to deliver." 

Our corps of workers is composed of consecrated and Spirit- 
filled men and women, many of whom have had long experience 
in efforts of this character. On the occasion of the opening 
service (Saturday evening, May 12) God set His seal to the 
work by drawing seven earnest seekers to our altar for prayer. 

Street meetings will be held nightly, and an earnest and ag- 
gressive work carried forward for the betterment of society and 
the salvation of lost men and women. 



12 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Our hall is well located on the south side of Pennsylvania 
Avenue, N. W., in the midst of saloons and pool-rooms and in 
close proximity to that section of the city almost wholly given 
up to evil, and it will be the constant effort of the Mission and 
its workers to seek out and rescue the erring girls ant! reckless 
men who are found in large numbers in this immediate neighbor- 
hood. 

The management is determined that the expenses of this work 
shall be kept at the minimum figures — not exceeding $ioo per 
month — and they confidently appeal to their Christian brethren 
and friends and to the public for such funds as shall be found 
necessary to carry forward this work. Can you, will you, aid us ? 
With great respect, 

G. W. WHEEI.ER, Chairman, 
J. S. Mewshaw, Secretary, 
H. D. Gordon, Treasurer, 

Bxeciitive Committee. 



These good men are at this vv^riting (1913) yet con- 
nected with the v^rork. Mr. Mev^shaw is an employee of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, and has charge of a station 
some distance from Washington, but contributes and 
comes with us occasionally. But no organization was 
ever more fortunate than the Gospel Mission in its 
officers. 

TREASURER, MR. H. D. GORDON 

is a prominent lawyer of the city. He really gives more 
time to the Mission than his business can afford. When 
we are under strain to make a payment on the building, 
he and Mr. Wheeler can go to their friends and raise 
$1000 more readily than the remainder of the Board 
can raise $100. They ask largely of their friends. The 
others of us ask for one dollar monthly contributions, 
and we each receive as we ask. Mr. Gordon's devotion 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK 1 3 

cannot better be illustrated than by the following: Mr. 
Gordon is a most effective singer. I have heard many 
singing evangelists, but none with a finer pathos of voice 
than Mr. Gordon's. One evening in the fall of 1909, 
when each evening we were privileged to hold our out- 
door meetings in front of the city post-office, I was pass- 
ing on the street car when I saw Mr. Gordon with his 
guitar standing all alone, trying to sing salvation to some 
passing sinners. I found the tears coursing down my 
cheeks, so I got off at the next corner and went back 
to help him, but by that time other workers were on hand 
and it was less sacrifice for me to speak for him. I 
acknowledge here a mean pride (which the Lord has 
had to thrash out of me with many hard knocks) against 
speaking on the street. I have had to remember many 
times that Jesus was an outdoor preacher all His days, 
and all the Apostles, and who am I that I am ashamed 
to follow where He has led! But Brother Gordon can 
stand alone anywhere for Christ. He is greatly in de- 
mand in other cities as a successful evangelist. 

I want to here bear testimony to the great good done 
by outdoor meetings. If all evangelical churches who be- 
lieve in conversion and regeneration would hold their 
meetings outdoors in the summer, they would bring many 
souls, for which they will be held responsible, to Christ. 
If young people would hold alley meetings in the alley 
nearest their church they would bring sinners to Christ, 
there would be no slums and the young Christians would 
grow in grace. 

PRESIDENT, GEORGE W. WHEELER 

President, George W. Wheeler, of the Executive 
Board, is one of God's best gifts to the city of Washing- 



14 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

ton. He is the very best City Rescue Mission worker 
I have ever seen, and I have seen most of the city mis- 
sions of the United States and Europe. In the summer 
of 1910, in company with Mrs. M. P. Spindle, I visited 
all the great cities of Europe, especially Glasgow, 
Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, to obtain 
suggestions for improving our work, as we thought, at 
that time, to plan for erecting a great mission building 
unequaled in all the world. Most mission buildings are 
mere adaptations of old buildings. We hoped to do 
better, but God ordered otherwise. Among all these 
great mission workers I have seen none superior to 
George W. Wheeler in Rescue Mission work and in con- 
ducting an interdenominational organized work for God. 
First, his consecration is marvelous. He had been thirty 
or more years in government service, to lose time means 
not only loss of money, but even endangers a man's 
tenure of office. 

But when Mr. Wheeler is called to see a soldier, a 
sailor, a sick man in the hospital, who must be seen in 
business hours, he never, as all other government mem- 
bers of the Board do, pleads loss of any kind, but goes at 
once on the errand of love and mercy. Then he gets on 
well with his Board of Directors ; if debate runs high and 
a measure is carried without his favor, he holds no 
grudge, he is universally kind. That means much. Then 
his acquaintance is so large he can secure good talent for 
helpers in every line; he has the absolute confidence of 
the community (which he richly deserves), and by the 
blessing of God secures funds for our great work; and, 
best of all, he leads many souls to Christ. He has proba- 
bly seen more souls born into the kingdom of God than 
any other living rescue worker. 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK I5 

(Mr. Wheeler died January 19, 1914. "He buries the 
workers, but the work goes on.") 



MRS. M. p. SPINDLE 

is a Christian woman whom I found connected with the 
Mission when I went there. My attention was first at- 
tracted toward her by her HberaHty when I made the calls 
for bedding, so now I borrowed $85 from her and put in 
the bath. She was kind enough to let me pay it back in 
driblets, and from that day to this she has given more 
money than any other worker. She has loaned or given 
the money to go forward in each venture of mine, and, 
above all, I have had the benefit of her counsel and her 
favor in every form, and together we have prayed 
through many an obstruction which seemed an impassa- 
ble barrier. 

THE FUMIGATOR 

No sooner did we get the bath in place than I saw the 
necessity for a fumigator, not only that men should have 
their clothing purified from disease and from vermin, but 
for the sake of the beds. I found that they could not be 
kept clean without the men bathed and had their clothing 
fumigated. 

The Board again did not feel able to put in the fumi- 
gator, which cost $125. In this work I found a friend in 
Mr. Ernest Gichner, who invented a sheet-iron room 
with suitable fire-box and chimneys, which he anchored 
on the roof of the building. 

It did good service and added to the comfort of the 
men and the cleanliness of the house, not only while 
there, but later he moved it over to our new building. 
Mr. Gichner permitted me to make payments in install- 



l6 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

ments of $25, which I was able to collect mostly from my 
friends in the Luther Memorial Church and the Mission 
workers themselves, who are always liberal even beyond 
their means. 

ENLARGEMENT 

I became Chairman of the House Committee in Sep- 
tember, 1908, and the following December Mr. H. W. 
Kline was made Superintendent. As soon as we had 
nice beds to offer for ten cents a night, we had a steadily 
increased patronage, so that by the fall of 1909 we were 
obliged to rent a large room back of us. That winter we 
had eighty-four beds filled nearly every night. 

A friend in California sent me $25 as a Christmas 
present, and I put white spreads on the twenty-five best 
beds. Some members of the Board laughed at me so 
much that I was obliged to remind them that the money 
of the Mission was not used. Long ago they have come 
to see that a white bed is a necessity if wci are to keep 
a clean house. 

By October, 1909, our expenses for rent, fuel and 
necessities had increased from $100 to $150 each month. 

Our statistics for 1908, as shown by our circular, were 
as follows: 

Statistics of the year and of the last quarter — 
From January, ipo8, to January, iQOp 

Statistics of three months of ipo8, as follows: 

Req. for Conver- 

Attendance Prayer Seekers sions Services 

Dec. 1908 1961 165 86 14 41 

Jan. 1909 2487 217 73 37 46 

Feb. 1909 1245 51 34 13 28 

Total 5693 433 I93 64 115 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK 1 7 

(Now we care for over 50,000 persons a year.) 

During the year employment was found for probably 
300 men. 

We accept it as a great privilege to have presented the 
gospel of Jesus Christ to this number of people. 

Our little circular of that period thus sets forth : 

THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 

"Washington is a dreadful place for a man out of work. 
The city having no manufactories, and all rough work, 
such as excavating, is let by contract to men who prefer 
Italians or Negroes as diggers, while stores and offices 
have room for only the efficient young person, so that, 
when from age, inefficiency or lack of political influence, 
people are dropped from the government service, we are 
often at our wit's end to provide means of subsistence 
for these worthy persons most anxious to labor. We 
have some old men whose working days are over. These 
are for the most part good men, for the wicked do not 
live out half their days. A few immigrants from northern 
Europe, sick men who are able to walk about, but could 
not work if they had it ; the shoestring man, the umbrella 
man, the sandwich man, the men who are half insane for 
lack of food and enforced lack of sleep, for they have 
no place to sleep oftener than once a week. Then we 
have the criminal classes, which must be touched with the 
Spirit of God, or they will become the dynamite which 
will destroy our cities, also the men just out of prison. 
These are the special thought of the Mission, for unless 
they are made to feel that they are but temporarily side- 
tracked from the great highway of success, they will be- 
come an ever-increasing menace to society. 

"Above all, we have the drunkard, who has lost his grip. 



l8 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

lost family, lost place in society, lost business and has 
become a mass of putrid flesh, utterly abhorent to his 
fellow-men. When we look at these people, whose weary 
eyes have looked long into unspeakable sorrow, our very 
souls rejoice that we have proven beyond possibility of 
doubt that 'the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses 
from all sin; that if we confess our sins. He is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness,' for we have seen some of every class 
mentioned redeemed, placed back in society, among the 
producing power of the nation." 

''our gospel mission TIDINGS'" 

(a monthly paper) was issued first in October, 1909. All 
members of the Executive Committee have helped in 
some measure on it, but the responsibility has fallen 
heaviest on Mr. G. W. Wheeler and myself. Our entire 
income is the result of our paper, it is our means of com- 
municating with the public. 

THE INDUSTRIAL PLANT 

was really brought about by two tragedies. One cold day 
I went to the Mission, and on the outside I saw a man, 
whom I shall call Kelly, shivering at the door. He looked 
like death, pale, trembling, the lips and nostrils drawn as 
if in extreme pain. "What is the matter, Kelly?" I said. 
"I am starving to death; amid all these happy people I 
am left out. I have walked the streets hunting work till 
I can walk no more." 

At that time we did not provide food of any kind, but 
I said, "Let us go up stairs to the Mission," where Mr. 
Proctor, then acting as Superintendent, provided bread 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK 1 9 

and coffee. I set the man to rewhitewashing the dormi- 
tories, and we kept him till he secured work. 

The other was the case of a young man just released 
from Moundsville Penitentiary. After I had given the 
lesson one Tuesday night, I was led to tell in detail the 
story of Valentine Burke, a man converted in the St. 
Louis jail, from reading one of Mr. Moody's sermons 
in a city newspaper. Mr. Burke afterward became a val- 
uable citizen, held the position of assistant warden, and 
led hundreds of lost men into the clear light of the gospel. 
When I had finished, a well-dressed man on the front 
seat said, "I am just out of Moundsville; no one has 
spoken a kind word to me, I have had nothing to eat 
to-day, I see no way but to steal again." He was only 
about twenty-two years of age. I put my arm over his 
shoulder and said, "Son, we will take care of you and get 
you work." The Superintendent took him up stairs, gave 
him bread and coffee, then a warm bath, but he was so 
weary the men had to help him to get to bed. We all 
tried to get that boy work, but as soon as the word peni- 
tentiary was mentioned every door was closed. I re- 
member walking up Capitol Hill, crying aloud to God, 
*'Give us an industrial plant or the sorrows of homeless, 
workless men will take my life." 

I paid for the food for a week. He tried also to obtain 
work, but I think the sight of my anxious face worried 
him — I have learned not to carry sorrow in my face since 
then. That boy slipped through our fingers and went 
back to crime. Now, at whose hands will that soul, anx- 
ious for better things, be required? 

Before I went for my summer vacation I urged before 
the Board an industrial plant. Mr. Kline strenously ob- 
jected. During that vacation I laid the matter very fully 



20 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

before God in prayer and felt constrained to urge the 
starting of an industrial work. 

At our first meeting in September Mr. Kline said, 
"Brethren, I have come to see the need of an industrial 
plant, not only so that men can earn lodging, but where, 
after conversion, we can keep a man a few days to 
teach him the way of life." A Mission worker often 
prays himself into light. 

Again I was forced to borrow money with which to 
purchase a horse and wagon. Mrs. Spindle loaned me 
the $150 needed. That fall my little book, called "The 
Life of Gustavus Adolphus," published by The Lutheran 
Publication Society, Philadelphia, came out. The house 
gave me $25 in cash, if I remember correctly, and 100 
copies of the book, which I sold at 40 cents a copy. So I 
gave the $65 of my own on the horse and wagon in pay- 
ing back Mrs. Spindle for the loan. 

In some way we also secured a paper baler, thus we 
gave two men work in collecting books, newspapers, etc., 
and two men at the baler. In the November Gospel Tid- 
ings we announced that the wagon from the Gospel Mis- 
sion would call on the first and fifteenth of the month, and 
would accept papers, rags, clothes, bottles, etc., saying, 
"We have old men who separate these things and label 
and bale this material." The money was used to feed 
and care for these unfortunates. 

The city people responded most generously, and in this 
way our industrial branch was started, and greatly ben- 
efited the Mission for two and a half years. 

Later we obtained a wood-saw run by a gasoline en- 
gine, and we started the penny bundling industry, where 
we could use eight or ten men and make the double pur- 



HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN RESCUE WORK 21 

pose of work for unfortunate men and yet make the in- 
dustry self-supporting. 

When the United States granted wood pulp to be 
brought into the country f ree^of duty, our paper industry 
was destroyed, as we could not sell the paper, and the 
government took our woodyard and killed our wood in- 
dustry, but they both did much good in their day. 

The Gospel Mission in the fall of 1914 will again open 
a laundry, wood cutting, rope-making, printing, and chair 
caning in the line of industries for men who will gladly 
work rather than eat the bread of charity. 



CHAPTER II 

Rescue Mission Work 

When I was called to assist in the Gospel Mission, I 
was not a novice in rescue work, having been among the 
workers of the Sunday Breakfast Association in Phila- 
delphia, Pa., for twelve years under the direction of Mr. 
Lewis Bean, probably one of the ablest mission workers 
of this or any other country. The Sunday Breakfast is, 
so far as I know, the largest Rescue Mission of this coun- 
try. 

HOW GOD CALLED ME 

When I moved from Washington to Philadelphia, I 
found myself very lonely. I had been President of a 
Collegiate Institute at Atchison, Kan., from 1870 to 1885, 
when, because of failure of health, I came East, and took 
up literary work. At Washington, where I lived from 
1885 to 1888, I soon came in contact with literary people, 
and belonged to both literary and scientific clubs, some 
of whose members are to this day strong personal friends. 
But in the twelve years in Philadelphia I never became 
much acquainted with university people, authors' clubs. 
Browning or Shakespeare clubs, although I knew they 
were all there. God had to break me loose from too 
great devotion to that side of life in order to use me for 
more spiritual work. 

One evening, in the summer of 1888, I came along 
Arch Street where, in a basement room at Broad and 
Arch, some women were holding a prayer service. I 

(22) 



RESCUE MISSION WORK 23 

entered and joined with them. Three poor, ragged, 
soiled men were converted. I saw the women were even 
more inexperienced with the phenomena of sudden con- 
versions than I was. So I stepped forward and pledged 
the converts to a Christian life. Then I appealed to the 
good men present to see that the converts had a good 
meal that night, and asked for work for them. Good 
men at once promised both. 

When the meeting was dismissed a gentleman came to 
me and said, "We need you at the Sunday Breakfast 
Association to speak next Sunday night. We shall have 
over 1000 men present, all needing to find God. You 
are one of the women who can speak without any of 
the Little Johnny death-bed scenes, and we need you." 
I replied, "If you asked me to talk on Dickens, Shakes- 
peare, or any literary character, I could easily do it, but 
to win souls to Christ, I am not at all sure I could do it." 
He did not argue, he simply said, "I give you your op- 
portunity." That startled me, and I said, "I will try." 

So the next Sunday evening at the Breakfast Associa- 
tion I made my first talk before an audience largely of 
the submerged tenth. The galleries and the platform 
were filled with well-dressed people, and, instead of try- 
ing to save some soul, I tried to make a fine speech. My 
rhetoric was perfect, my periods nicely rounded, my 
illustrations pertinent, and I sat down pretty well satis- 
fied with my fine self. Mr. Bean saw what I had done, 
so he shook a few grains out of all the chaff I had given 
them, made the application, and let me down as easily as 
he could. 

But while I sat there God's Spirit dealt with me. 
"What if a mother of one of these lost men had had 
your opportunity," said God's Spirit, "would she have 



24 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

talked platitudes to the galleries and the platform? 
Would she? Would she?" I saw my sin. As I fled 
from the house I nearly cried aloud in my samefaced 
grief. When I got to my room I went to my knees and I 
cried to God my deep shame, "Dear Father, I have sinned. 
I know now that is not my work. My business is to in- 
struct the intellect. I will leave the winning of souls to 
preachers and mothers. Help me to bear the testimony 
of a well-ordered Christian life, speaking for you in my 
own social set, but I am not equal to facing those who 
have looked long into the eyes of sin and suffering and 
sorrow, and are uncomforted with a knowledge of Thy 
grace." 

So I felt I had disposed of that, and determined to 
keep to literature forevermore. The next day the card 
of a woman whom I had met in the highest social circles 
of Washington was sent to my room. As I came down 
through the hall I saw in front of the house her carriage 
with footman and driver and team of Kentucky-bred 
horses. When I entered she broke out in a sort of 
wail, "I hear you spoke at the Breakfast Association last 
night." "Yes, and made a great guy of myself. I do not 
expect to ever go there again, except as a spectator. I 
fear I am more literary than religious." 

I wish I could describe the next few minutes. Her 
face blazed. "You, you!" she said; "why you had a 
father a minister, your mother a praying woman, and 
you not to go there to speak to lost men, if you have the 
opportunity! You have had everything which training 
can give, and you refuse to reach a hand to lost men." 

"Well, what does that concern you ?" 

She sat down. The agony in her face became anguish. 
She turned white, then red, then back to white, till I 



RESCUE MISSION WORK 25 

feared for her heart. "What does it concern me ! What ! 
What! Well, I must tell you. I have a son who sits 
down in that awful crowd!" 

It was my turn now to be moved. "You?" I said, 
"why, you live in a white marble palace, and can it be 
that your son is a homeless, friendless man?" 

"Yes," she said, "I live in a white marble palace and I 
hate it from turret to foundation stone, because my old- 
est son is not allowed under its roof. He is a drunkard, 
and will steal everything he can lay his hands on and 
sell it for drink, so that his father forbids me to see him 
or to give him money. The last time I saw him he was 
shoveling coal into a manhole; he looked the part." 

Here she tried to give me a large roll of money, as 
she said, "Take this, and please go to the Breakfast As- 
sociation and find my darling boy." "Madam, I am not 
authorized to take money for the Association. Dr. Hen- 
derson is the Treasurer, do see him !" "I will not. Will 
will know who you are. I told him much of meeting you 
in Washington. I want you to take this money and find 
and clothe my sorrowful son ; and oh, say what I would 
like to say if I could talk like you! Tell him when he 
sees a light at the top of the house that his mother is in 
the attic praying for him, and will you pray for me that 
I shall not die under this ? Will you pray for my son ?" 

Then we two kneeled and poured into the heart of a 
loving Saviour that story of woe. How she wailed over her 
own frivolous life, and promised her God a life for Him. 
Nearly all the persons referred to have died, so, though 
the parties may be recognized in Philadelphia, it cannot 
now harm anyone. 

I took the money offered. The next Sunday evening 
I went to the Association, and my face must have told 



26 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

the story, for when I said to Mr. Bean, "I have a mes- 
sage," he let me speak. I selected the words, "Son, be- 
hold thy mother !" I told many incidents of heart-broken 
mothers because of the sins of their sons, and then I told 
of Mrs. W., nearly in the above language. Probably 
two hundred men requested prayer that night, and I saw 
God could use me for other than literary work. 

Mr. Bean said, "That man will not show up till the 
others have gone," so I sat down and waited. 

When nearly everyone had left the room a poor, blear- 
eyed youth came to the platform. He said, "Mrs. Mon- 
roe, I am Will W. Do give me some money." I said, 
"Will, do you intend to break your mother's heart? Do 
you intend to keep on drinking?" "Now, see here, Mrs. 
Monroe, I have honestly tried to quit." Then, pushing 
up his sleeve, he showed me scars. "There I have signed 
the pledge with my own blood, and I cannot quit." 
Howard McMasters, one of the Breakfast Association 
workers, pointed the way to Christ far better than I 
could. Then he gave him tickets where he could get 
lodging. I met him the next day at a Turkish bath 
house. At first they refused to take him, and only by 
paying a high price could I secure him a bath and proper 
barbering. I gave him a complete outfit of clothes, and 
he looked very respectable. Mr. McMasters put a good 
man on the case to talk with him, to read the New Testa- 
ment with him, to explain salvation and to help him find 
God, and to keep at his side whenever possible. 

My business took me out of town for several weeks; 
when I came back to the city, I went, of course, the first 
Sunday evening to the Breakfast Association. After 
the meeting was over Will W. came slouching up to the 
platform as vile as when I first saw him. He had sold 



RESCUE MISSION WORK 2^ 

every article I had given him for drink. This sorrowful 
experience was repeated about five times, but as good is 
stronger than evil, the prayers of God's people prevailed, 
and Mr. McMasters brought him forward to the altar 
and God met him. 

His mother's prayers, the word of God as shown by 
Howard McMasters and that wonderful Divine Spirit 
made a clean work, and a soul was born to God. We 
kept him as well guarded as we could. The smells of the 
street troubled him, for that reason I went to his father's 
wholesale house on Market Street. I had met Mr. W. 
with his wife in Washington, and he met me cordially, till 
I said, "Mr. W., I have come to talk to you about your 
oldest son." He blazed at me, "Don't you dare to speak 
to me of my oldest son. He has broken my heart, his 
mother's heart, and disgraced my name. I will not per- 
mit even my wife to speak of him, much less a friend." 
"But he is converted, Mr. W. It will be different now." 
"Oh ! he has a new dodge, has he ?" "Mr. W., you must 
talk to me fairly about this wrecked young life or refer 
me to someone who can act in your behalf." "Well, see 
his brother," and a clerk showed me to the brother's 
counting-room. He heard my story with sympathy. 
After stating the case, I said, "I want you to put him on 
a truck farm down near Media, and get him away from 
the smells of Philadelphia." This was done, though it 
took several weeks to bring it about. 

The next Sunday night Will sat on the platform, and 
testified to the power of God to save. When the meeting 
had closed, a handsome young woman, wearing a costly 
tailor-made gown and with the stamp of the patrician in 
every line of her dainty person, said to me, "Mrs. Mon- 
roe, I am going to marry Will W. this week." "Oh, my 



28 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

dear girl, do not risk it till he has proved himself for two 
years! Do not risk it!" "You believe he is converted, 
do you not?" "Why, yes; but we should see the trans- 
forming power of the gospel before you risk your hap- 
piness." "Will needs me now to help him keep straight. 
You have not as much faith as you ought to have your- 
self, or you would believe he will hold out." 

What more could I say? They were married. His 
mother was present at the ceremony, and they went to 
the farm to live. Will was held by the power of God, 
and, after much blundering, they made a fair success 
with a truck farm. 



CHAPTER III 
Incidents Showing the Power of God to Save 

Among the many other impressive cases of the power 
of God to suddenly change a human Hfe from evil to 
good occurred at the Breakfast Association in Phila- 
delphia about the year 1898, and although fifteen years 
have passed, every incident, every word is indelibly 
written on my memory. 

I was coming off the platform one evening when I met 
a large, fierce-looking, scowling man, who looked as if he 
wanted to strike me. I stopped at once. "Friend," I 
said, "you are in trouble." "What is that to you and such 
as you ?" "It is much to me. You look like an employer 
of men, yet here you have been taking the bread and 
coffee of charity." "Well, I have been an employer of 
men, but now I cannot even get employment. I have 
been behind bars; now what hope in life is there for 
me ?" "Many men who have been behind bars have after- 
ward made good citizens and even made fortunes. Let us 
go down to the Board room and talk this out." 

As he went along growling that there was no hope 
for him, I motioned to Mr. McMasters and another 
worker to come with us. When we were seated, he said, 
"Now, all I want of you people is to help me get work 
so that I do not wander like a stray dog through the 
streets of the city where I was born. My wife and fam- 
ily have deserted me and I am a desperate man." 

"Yes," I said, "brother, no woman could live with you 
as you are now, one would as soon live with a wolf ; your 

(29) 



so TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

hand is against every man and every man's hand is 
against you. But God can again make you an employer 
of men. He can make you a good husband and father, 
but you must find God first. Where is your mother?" 
I saw him shrink, and I knew then I had the key. "My 
going to prison killed my mother. I had a mill in a 
suburb of Philadelphia, and sometimes, after the day's 
work was done, I would step into a saloon and take a 
glass of beer with my foreman. I was not what you 
would call a drinking man. One evening we got into a 
dispute about something concerning the mill, and I picked 
up a monkey wrench and struck my foreman just one 
blow, but I killed him. All our property went for law- 
yer fees, all to no purpose, for I was sent to prison for 
ten years. I have just been pardoned," and he drew the 
governor's pardon from his pocket. "When I went to 
my home I found strangers in it, but at last I found my 
wife and my children now nearly grown, but they would 
not let me live with them." I knew perfectly well from 
other experiences that he had gone in violence and had 
been met with violence. 

Mr. McMasters now took the case. He said, "If your 
mother were now living, do you believe she would have 
received you?" "I am sure she would. The warden 
often told us that our mothers would stay by us, that 
children grew ashamed of a father in prison, wives per- 
suaded themselves that it only kept up their grief, but a 
mother's love is like that of the God above, it remains. 
But mother died." 

"Well, you want to meet her again, do you not ?" "Yes, 
but my mother was a Christian." "That is it ; let us kneel 
and talk to your mother's God." Reluctantly, growling 
that God cared nothing for a poor devil like him, he 



INCIDENTS SHOWING THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE 3I 

kneeled, and with the three of us kneeling about him, 
we each one presented the case to God, calling on the 
"God whom this man's mother loved and served, asking 
mercy for a broken life, a broken home and a broken 
heart." By the time the last one prayed his head was 
on the chair and he was sobbing. Then he prayed for 
himself, and God came down and the old alchemy of 
God turned the heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and 
George Gneiss was born into the kingdom of God. It 
was not difficult to get him a place as a skilled miller, and 
from that day to this he has made good. 

The transforming power of the gospel was plainly seen 
within a week in his face, in his clothing, in his bearing 
at every meeting. After a few Sundays I was called out 
of town for six weeks. When I came home, I went to 
the Breakfast Association and there, from the gallery, 
Mr. Gneiss looked down on me. At his side was a 
Quaker woman in the plain dress of her Church, and 
with them was a manly boy of seventeen. After the 
services, they all came to me (I motioned to others to 
come), and they told us the story of their reunion. Tears 
stood in her eyes as she said, "We have family prayers 
now, and we pray for you every day. God is blessing 
us in every way. Pray for us." 

After that they came to see me, either at the Breakfast 
Association or at my home, as often as three or four 
times a year as long as I remained in Philadelphia. 

THE GOSPEL MISSION 

After telling about those two incidents connected with 
my small share of rescue work in Philadelphia, it is time 
now to resume the story of our Gospel Mission. It is 
only because we see souls converted almost every night 



32 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

that makes it possible for us to bear the sight and the foul 
smell of unclean bodies, of dead whisky and tobacco, 
and the revolting drunkenness, then the remonstrances 
of one's own kindred and church people are trying, un- 
less God gave great recompense, first in one's own en- 
larged spiritual life, in order to fit us for the work, and 
almost daily gave us the joy of seeing souls converted, 
it would be an impossible work. 

CONVERSIONS AND REGENERATION 

Conversion seems to me to be largely man's share in 
the greater fact of regeneration, which is entirely God's 
work in a human soul. 

At a Rescue Mission the theologian could get a new 
and practical knowledge of the gospel he preaches; the 
professor of psychology sees how spiritual powers, un- 
seen to mortal eye, can grip the entire machinery of the 
mind, and by a supernatural application of God's Spirit 
and the word of God make a man over again. 

Hundreds of times have I seen the alchemy of Crod 
make men who steal to do God's service; feet that have 
been in the way of the transgressor to walk in the paths 
of righteousness, and tongues accustomed to blaspheme 
to sing God's praises. 

Professor James defines conversion thus : "To be con- 
verted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience 
religion, to gain assurance, are so many phrases which 
denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self 
hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and un- 
happy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior 
and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on religious 
realities." 

The first element in conversion is first an influence from 



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INCIDENTS SHOWING THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE 33 

the Holy Spirit brought about by prayer. Now, that 
prayer may have been sent up years ago by a mother now 
dead, but is usually the result of a prayer atmosphere in 
the meeting. 

The Holy Spirit acts like a searchlight on the human 
soul, and the sinner for an instant sees himself as God 
sees him. I have seen men rush through the door, and, 
without taking a seat, come straight to the altar, because 
God's Spirit had met them. That is not the usual way, 
and it is usually some immediate message of His word, 
rendered in song or spoken word to the sinner's heart, by 
which he catches a glimpse of his lost condition. 

Let no parent be discouraged concerning a wandering 
child. Delayed answer to prayer is not a denial. I know 
a minister whom God greatly uses who was a wild youth 
when his mother died, but God answered her prayer. He 
will answer yours. 

It is important who presents the sinner to God. A 
perfunctory church member who plays cards, dances, 
tipples or smells of tobacco, cannot acceptably bring a 
soul to God. God often accepts a soul without an inter- 
mediary, but the wrong person keeps a soul from God. 
It makes a difference. You remember Ezekiel 14 : 20, 
"Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they shall 
but deliver their own souls by their righteousness," show- 
ing that as we abide in Him, God answers prayers ac- 
cordingly. Then the word of God comes in. The helper 
tries to make the seeker lay hold of the promises. I have 
seen many conversions on Romans 10 : 13, "For whoso- 
ever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." 
It comes like a wireless message from on high. It be- 
comes personal as the praying sinner cries to God, he 
believes he is heard, he believes he is forgiven, he ac- 
3 



34 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

cepts the pardon and rises to his feet a redeemed man. A 
supernatural power has come into his soul. Another 
verse which brings men through is i John i : 9, "If we 
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

The religion of Christ has two elements in it — a de- 
structive element and a constructive element. The de- 
structive element is what we figuratively call "the blood 
of Christ." It not only pardons or washes away the past 
sins, but it takes out of the soul lying, drinking, lust, lazi- 
ness, deceit, fraud of any kind, and with the constructive 
element it puts into the soul honor, truth, industry, in- 
tegrity or wholeness. It creates in the soul the desire to 
walk in companionship with Christ. 

The recognition of sins forgiven and the conscious 
presence of God is what in emotional natures makes 
some shout, some weep, some tremble as with an ague, 
but regeneration in all souls brings unspeakable joy. It 
not only energizes for action, but it puts into the soul the 
power of endurance before unknown. 

I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH 

One cold night in November, 1908, the writer had 
charge of the Gospel Mission service. In the testimony 
meeting a fine looking young man arose and said about 
this : "I am a graduate of a college in Maine, also of a 
medical department of a college of this city. I have had 
a good practice and a good home. I have lost all of 
these from hard drink. Last spring I was converted in 
a street meeting held by this Mission at the post-office 
corner. Soon after that I obtained a situation in a large 
department store in this city, where I did good work, but 
I lost my temper at the inefficiency of a driver. I learned 



INCIDENTS SHOWING THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE 35 

then and there that only proprietors have the right to 
lose their tempers, and I lost my place. I have had a 
hard time since. God only knows the suffering of a man 
without money, friends, or even acquaintances in a great 
city." And with a w^ail, like a cry of anguish, he said, 
"But I Ve kept the faith ! I Ve kept the faith !" 

After the close of the meeting, a worker said, "I fear 
that man has had no food to-day." I went to him and 
said, "Son, when did you eat last?" He answered, "Yes- 
terday morning." I slipped into his hand a dollar bill 
and my card, and said, "Come and see me to-morrow 
morning." 

We had no difficulty in getting him back into the de- 
partment store w^here his quick and clear penmanship, his 
great executive ability, have been most highly appre- 
ciated for nearly five years. 



CHAPTER IV 
An Element of Humor in Rescue Work 

Unless one can see the humor in rescue work, the trag- 
edy of it all would break the heart, ruin one's health, and 
keep one's mind all the time on the sorrowful stories 
that we hear daily. 

A part of successful rescue work is the ability to bring 
each sorrowful case to God, lay it on His altar, and leave 
it behind us when we leave the Mission. 

AUNT MARY 

One very cold night, a few years ago, we had present 
among our visitors a wealthy lady and gentleman from 
Pittsburgh. We were most anxious that the Mission 
should make a good impression on them, hoping a dona- 
tion of at least $25. It was a very cold night. Soon 
after the services opened a person, whom I shall call 
Charles Winters, son of an old Virginia family, came in. 
He was much under the influence of liquor, and began 
at once to make a disturbance. 

I remembered his dear old gray-haired mother and his 
accomplished sister, and knew in a moment that if he 
were put out he would freeze to death or be placed in 
prison. Two of the helpers started to put him out ; that 
was the easy way, and there were my guests and that 
prospective donation. 

The men already had hold of him, when I said, "Stop, 
men; please let me speak to him." Laying my hand 
kindly on his shoulder, I said, "Charles, sit down and be- 

(36) 



AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK 2>7 

have yourself." With a drunken laugh, he said, "I '11 sit 
down for you, Aunt Mary, but not for these toughs." 
All evening I had to go back every few minutes to quiet 
him, much to the amusement of my friends, who fre- 
quently to this day call me Aunt Mary. But I saved a 
family from shame and my donation came all right. 

In most businesses old age is a handicap, but every gray 
hair of my white head is an asset. Nearly every evening 
some poor, vanquished soldier of fortune, ragged, un- 
shaven and unshorn, comes to me and says with quiver- 
ing lips, "You look just like my mother, to-night, will 
you care a little for me ?" And I lay my arm across the 
soiled coat and say, "Son, the trail of every sin is on your 
poor soiled body ; you have tried some by yourself to be 
good, now let us ask Jesus to help. But I shall send you 
up stairs under guard and to the bath-room, where you 
must take a very warm bath while I go to the work- 
room and get you clean clothes from the skin out ; your 
clothing will go into the fumigator over night; you shall 
have enough to eat and be physically comforted, then we 
will try again with Jesus as yoke-fellow. You and 
I will talk to Him about it and we will try again, shall 
we?" 

There is no use talking salvation to a hungry man or a 
man physically uncomfortable. We usually help a poor 
fellow several days before anything more than the above 
is said, then we show him the tendencies of his life; he 
sees them in the wrecks all around him. He hears the 
testimony of redeemed drunkards, thieves and gamblers, 
and sees them clothed and in their right minds ; then the 
teachings of some Christian mother, Sunday school 
teacher, or preacher comes back, and lo ! he prays. God's 
Holy Spirit acts as a searchlight, and he sees his ab- 



38 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

horrent self as God sees him, and he cries for mercy. 
God comes down when the sinner calls for redeeming 
power, and a great psychological change takes place. If 
a soul really agrees to give up every sin, to take Jesus 
Christ as pattern and friend, Christ Himself enters into 
covenant relations with that soul and the man is bom 
again. He usually lays hold mentally of some one verse 
of Scripture, which becomes to him a personal message 
from on high. I have seen many take the verse, "Seek ye 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all 
these things shall be added unto you," and use it as the 
stepping stone into the higher life. They seek God and 
live His righteousness. Take the case of 

MR. E. C. CON NAUGHT 

as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912, 
Mr. Kline received a telephone message like this, "There 
is a drunken man with a wife and four children set out 
on the street at so and so. Bring coffee and food at 
once." Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr. 
and Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family. 
The wind was blowing snow and sleet, though it seemed 
too cold for either. The family, including the drunken 
father, were brought immediately to the Mission, though 
their household stuff was left standing on the street, 
where it remained four days. It was such a miserable 
collection that even the colored people did not steal any 
of it. Then it was brought to the Mission and stored in 
the cellar. 

One child was in the hospital from a blow from the 
father. They were physically comforted and put in the 
"Shelter," a place reserved for stranded women and chil- 
dren. By night the father was fairly sober and they were 



AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK 39 

all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where 
Mr. Connaught heard man after man rise and testify 
that God had saved him and taken away the appetite for 
drink. At first there was a sneer on his face, but gradually, 
as one well dressed man after another bore the same 
testimony, he cried out, "I have been an infidel, not be- 
lieving in God or immortality, but if the God you worship 
can cure me of this awful appetite, I want Him." He 
kneeled at one of the front benches, and an awful spec- 
tacle of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was. 

I remember thinking, "Surely this case is beyond help," 
but God is better than we even dare hope. Several 
prayers were offered in his behalf, then he prayed for 
himself, and lo ! he prayed with the tongue of the learned. 
He said, "O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of 
the very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am 
totally undone, I put myself in Thy hands for forgiveness 
and for discipline. O Lord, save me !" 

He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with 
a clear brain, and, looking about like one dazed, said, 
"What has happened, you all look different ?" Mr. Kline 
laid his arm lovingly over the man's shoulders as he 
said, "Brother Connaught, you have received your sight. 
The Lord Jesus has come into your soul." 

The next morning the Associated Charities had him 
arrested for non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, 
a good man, was on the bench. One of our workers said 
to the judge, "This man was converted last night, and if 
you will give him a chance he will now support his fam- 
ily." "Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather 
than go to Occoquan" (name of the workhouse). "But, 
judge, this is no fake case ; try him." 

The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, 



40 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

and the judge sent him up for eleven weeks. The little 
woman and her children were sent to her relatives in 
North Carolina by the Board of Charities and Children's 
Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, re- 
minding him that he had put himself in God's hands for 
discipline, and assuring him that if he could stand true, 
God had a useful life in store for him. A marked New 
Testament was given him when he left for down the 
river. There his head was shaved in the very cold 
weather, his clothing changed, so that he took a severe 
cold which came near carrying him off with pneumonia. 
It took about two weeks to bring political and social in- 
fluence to bear to have him parolled and sent back to the 
Mission. 

January and February of 1912 were very cold months, 
it was hard to get any kind of work for men to do, and 
the only thing we could secure for Connaught was pass- 
ing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to $3.60 
per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, 
to be sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline 
phoned me, "Connaught is trying to live on the rolls and 
coffee given in the bread line at six o'clock in the morn- 
ing." I replied, "Connaught must have oatmeal with 
cream — real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must 
have eggs and meat and strong coffee, or he will lose his 
religion." "Well, who is going to provide all that?" 
"The Lord has money enough for that." "Well, suppose 
you bring some of it right along," which of course I 
did. 

About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, 
the work gave out. We really prayed night and day, for 
we feared he would be rearrested and we had no money 
to support him. In a few days he secured work at dig- 



AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK 4I 

ging- on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been 
accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with 
him on his poor blistered hands, he said, "I am so glad 
to get the work that the hurt is nothing." Think of that 
for a man w^ho had not done a lick of work, physically or 
mentally, for months and months. 

Long before this we had found that he was a graduate 
of an English university, had lived in good style, keep- 
ing servants, he had possessed a nice home when he was 
first married, but when he found the habit of drink had 
fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping 
to break away from old companions and surroundings, 
and thus get away from the sin which bound him. 

He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not 
spent in drink went to the cures, but nothing cured him. 
We found he had been a first-class bookkeeper for one 
of the great railroads centering at Washington, so we 
applied to them. I am glad to say they took an imme- 
diate interest in the case. 

A man was sent to see him, then Mr. Connaught was 
put in charge of an office building at $40 per month, and 
at once he wanted his family back. They came first to 
the Mission, for we desired to keep him attending services 
every night till he would understand better the word of 
God and grow strong in faith. The railroad now pays 
him $80 a month, for he is a good executive, and he has 
bought a little home in the suburbs on which he is pay- 
ing monthly; a home where he can have a garden, an 
orchard and chickens. About once a week the father, 
the mother, and children come to the Mission. No better 
looking or happier looking people enter that building. 
He comes, as he says, to bear testimony to the saving 
and keeping power of the dear Lord Jesus. 



42 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

PSYCHOLOGY 

Now, science could not cure this case; all that science 
could do had been done for him. He had become so 
low that if he saw his children starving and he had ten 
cents, the money went to the saloon and not for bread. 
It is, as Professor James says, that "Conversion is the 
only means by which a radically bad man can be changed 
into a radically good person." The agencies in any con- 
version are first prayer, then the Holy Spirit and the 
word of God. This man was so far gone that he did not 
beHeve in the existence of God. But the sympathy of the 
workers made them pray most earnestly for God's Spirit, 
which came with convicting power. The verse of 
Scripture which came like a wireless message to his soul 
was, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unright- 
eousness." He claimed and still claims the last clause 
as a message to him personally. 

The reason that hundreds of sermons fail to comfort a 
saint or convert a sinner is because they fall on prayerless 
pews. You remember how what is known as the Great 
New England Revival came about. Dr. Jonathan Ed- 
wards was accustomed to go to his church every Satur- 
day afternoon to think and to pray for his people. 

On one occasion a beggar, known in the town as Old 
Betty, sat unseen in a back pew. The great preacher 
put his head down on the Bible and sobbed. As he came 
out Old Betty said, "What is it, Dr. Edwards, that so 
troubles you?" "Betty, I have not seen a soul converted 
in this church for a year. Why is it?" "It is because 
these pews are prayerless." "Will you pray till you 
get the answer that God will come in power to this 
church?" "I will." Betty hid when the janitor came 



AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK 43 

to close the church, and the answer to her soul did not 
come till the dawning of the morning. 

The following day Dr. Edwards started as usual to 
read his sermon, but he soon put it away and began a 
straight evangelistic talk, professed Christians stood in 
their places and asked for prayers, elders and deacons 
prostrated themselves before God, the whole town be- 
came a prayer circle, and the New England Revival had 
begun. 



CHAPTER V 
' Big Feet 

One day a very large man, well over sixty years, and 
with three fingers off each hand, in a very modest way 
said to me, "I am so ashamed to tell a lady my needs," 
and he turned up his foot and showed me where the sole 
was worn out, so that at every step he made he left a 
track in blood. "You poor fellow, you need not be 
ashamed to tell me of need like that. I shall arrange for 
you to stay at the Mission till I get shoes for you." 

He was of the class who sell shoestrings and pencils, 
but in very cold weather people do not stop to buy from 
street merchants. That night, after the midweek service 
of my church, I rose in my place and asked for a pair of 
shoes number 9^ or 10. The men hooted, no one of 
them ever wore that size, declaring, of course, that I 
wanted them to wear myself. 

"Well," I said, "whether you wear them or not, you 
get them for me," and I told the story of the bleeding 
feet. I did the same at my boarding house. By the next 
day one of the elders of the church came with two pairs 
of shoes which looked nearly big enough for boats, also 
one of the men of the boarding house sent to Annapolis 
to his father, a very large man, for a pair of shoes, 
which came to me by express. I put the three pairs into 
a basket and rushed to the Mission, when lo! the poor 
man could barely get his toes into the shoes. With trem- 
bling Hp, he said, "It is simply disgraceful to be old and 
poor and so awful big that even one's friends cannot help 

(44) 



BIG FEET 45 

a fellow." "Indeed, it is no disgrace to be old, poor and 
big, but it is a disgrace to be a bad man of any size or 
age. Don't you worry, I shall find the shoes." 

That afternoon I met a Board composed mostly of 
men eminent in city affairs, among them was a dis- 
tinguished lawyer, a very large man. He sat with his 
foot across one knee, when I leaned over and said, 
"Brother, would you mind walking home in your hose, 
and giving me those shoes for a poor chap as large as 
you are ?" "Do you really mean it ?" "Yes, I do ; only 
I will let you wear them home, then send them to me 
with hose, under clothes, and any other clothing you 
can spare." 

By the next morning I had clothing for the poor fel- 
low, and Mr. G.'s number ii shoes fit as if made to order. 

If the poor man had successfully sold pencils and shoe- 
strings all winter he could not have been so well clothed 
as he was that day. But, best of all, while he was obliged 
to wait he read the four Gospels through several times, 
and he sought and found salvation in Jesus Christ. That 
was November, 191 1. Since that he has gotten a place 
as night watchman in a large building, and he is a good 
and faithful man. 

In Missions we have a large number of deserted wives 
with children, whom we clothe. By that help they can 
by their own labor keep their little families together, and 
then on every holiday, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, 
etc., we bring them all to the Mission for reunion and 
a big dinner. The joyous seasons for the rich are the 
saddest times for the poor and the bereaved. It is such a 
privilege to be the administrators of the church people 
who send money and clothing for these purposes. In 
return, the Missions are the real protection of the city. 



46 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

A hungry man is dangerous, and a man with a hungry- 
family is a menace. 

My maid told me, one extreme cold day, that a man 
was at the door to see me. I found there one of the most 
dangerous housebreakers in the country. "Murphy," I 
said, "I do not want to see any of you men at my home. 
What do you want ?" "I am starving." "Well, go to the 
Mission, we never turn a man away there." "I wouldn't 
be caught dead there." "W^hynot?" "Well, I hate Kline 
(the Superintendent) and the whole outfit, but I am 
starving, I tell you." 

I knew by that he had been stealing at the Mission. 
Thieves fold up the sheets and pillow-cases, even when 
they have been entertaining free, put the bedding under 
their coats and get away with it. In time we get to know 
them and will not put them in the dormitories, but only in 
the barracks fitted with shelving but with no pillows or 
covers, but fire is kept all night. The bath and toilet- 
room adjoins or is part of the barracks, so that men are 
made comfortable. I took Murphy to an eating house 
near by and filled him up, but at the same time warning 
him to get out of town as soon as possible or change his 
course and become a good man. Now, if that man had 
not been given food he would surely have gotten it, if it 
cost a human life. Bad as he was, he would have been 
fed had he gone to the Mission. I feared he would not 
go, but would commit some depredation. Speaking of 
thieves, reminds me of the case of a man whom I shall 
call 

JAMES MANN. 

One evening a tall, fine-looking man came into the 
Mission chapel. One gets to know thieves somewhat as 
you know an Englishman, a German, an Italian, by the 



BIG FEET 47 

marks environment have left on the person. I knew on 
sight that he was a thief. We had a Salvation Army 
man at the Mission that night from West Virginia, who 
gave the message. His subject was, "Be sure thy sin will 
find thee out." 

He had been a thief, had served time, but now he told 
how happy and safe he felt serving God and in being a 
good citizen. Several men knelt at the altar that night, 
so when 9.30 p.m., the time for dismissal, came, the men 
were permitted to go to the dormitories while one or two 
workers prayed with the penitents. 

Mr. Mann retired, but he could distinctly hear the 
praying. He declared that a voice said, "Mann, now or 
never." He tried to go to sleep, the inward voice per- 
sisted, "Now or never." He put on his clothes, went 
back to the chapel, threw himself down at the altar and 
cried to God for mercy for himself. 

The workers gathered about him, he told God his story 
of sin and shame, and God heard his cry for mercy, and 
he rose a forgiven sinner. His kit of burglar tools were 
thrown into the Potomac River. He had come to Wash- 
ington to burglarize in the northwest section of the city 
during the time when Mr. Taft was being inaugurated. 
His portrait could have been seen in the rogues' gallery 
in every large city of the country, but in a few weeks God 
so changed his face that the man could not have been 
recognized by the old portrait. 

We told Major Sylvester, Chief of Police, of the case, 
and Mann was put on the special police force at the 
Union Station at inauguration time, and never before nor 
since was there ever such a quick nabbing of the noted 
thieves as at the Taft inaugural occasion. 

Mr. Mann's mother came on from her western home. 



48 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

She is a sincere Christian woman. It was doubtless the 
answering of her prayers which brought conviction, then 
salvation to that dangerous man. Once she said, "J^^^^s, 
I never heard of you for two whole years; where were 
you then?" He made an evasive answer, but we knew 
that he had spent them behind bars. 

After the inauguration the special police were dis- 
charged, and Mr. Mann went to work as a carpenter. 
He made a good assistant carpenter. About six months 
after that one of the Northern States was making a 
search for large men for their mounted police. Major 
Sylvester recommended Mann, as he was six feet four 
inches tall, and from that day to this he has been on the 
mounted constabulary of a great State, engaged in en- 
forcing the law, rather than breaking the laws of his 
country. 

Now, is not that real service to the State? This man 
was restored to his family, to society, to God. He be- 
came a factor for righteousness, instead of an element 
of danger to the commonwealth. 

We are not always fortunate enough to see men of 
that class seek God. On one occasion three young thieves 
came into the Mission, they were of the traveling men of 
their base business. After I returned to my home I 
called up the police and told them my suspicion, and 
asked them to watch the Mission very closely from 
eleven o'clock until morning. They were all captured 
between twelve and one o'clock midnight as they were 
leaving the building and escorted to the station and told 
to leave town, which, of course, they did immediately. 



CHAPTER VI 

How We Got a New Mission Building 
(a chapter on faith) 

Although by January i, 1911, we had eighty-four beds 
filled nearly every night with homeless men, we felt our- 
selves very much hampered for room. We turned many 
away. Many a poor fellow that winter walked the 
streets all night to keep from freezing. 

When we pray for a thing which we think the work of 
the Lord requires, we begin at once to arrange for it, 
as if the money to do the work were already at hand. 
Our paper, The Gospel Tidings, of January, 191 1, said, 
"Our Mission now does business in three different local- 
ities, and will soon be obliged to rent two more places 
for the wood cutting department and for opening a penny 
lunch-room." 

We were so sure that the Lord's work needed enlarg- 
ing that we went to the very best architects we knew, 
Gregg & Leisenring, and told them our plans and needs, 
and they prepared with the greatest care, drawings for 
a building costing at the very least $50,000, besides the 
cost of the land. Then the writer visited the seats of the 
mighty in New York City with the best introductions that 
the District Commissioners and leading statesmen could 
give. While I was received with great kindness and 
courtesy, I was distinctly told by one magnate that he 
helped only the young and those starting in life; by 
another that his charity could never take a local form, 
that he gave along the line of research for causes and 
4 (49) 



so TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

remedies of diseases. The women, whose secretaries I 
met, themselves not being visible to plain people, I was 
assured had planned all their surplus income for five to 
eight years ahead, so that I came back convinced that 
God's way for the Gospel Mission was not by way of 
New York City. 

About that time a great fire occurred in an eastern city, 
and many men and women lost their lives, and the order 
went out in Washington that every building where a 
large number of people worked or slept must have plenty 
of fire-escapes. 

We found to put fire-escapes on the Gospel Mission 
would cost $125, an immense sum to us, but we were 
preparing to put up the fire-escapes when the owner re- 
fused his permission. We told the police, and asked time 
to relocate, but were peremptorily ordered out of 1230 
Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. We could find no suitable 
building obtainable within our means. 

A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

was called at my house for prayer. There were thirteen 
members present. The object of the meeting was stated 
by President Wheeler, a few of God's promises read 
from His word, and we went on our knees for prayer. 

Each one asked for a suitable home to do the Master's 
work as seen and done by the Gospel Mission. It was 
noticeable that after the eighth person had prayed, each 
prayer took more and more the form of thanksgiving, as 
if we already had received the building, or money to 
build it. 

There had been offered to us a very large double build- 
ing which had once been used as the District Building, 
and upon which it was claimed that the government of 



HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING 5I 

the United States had once put $60,000 to make it fire- 
proof. It is situated at 214-216 John Marshall Place, 
N. W., not far from the foot of Capitol Hill. After hav- 
ing the distinct answer to prayer that God was working 
with us, a letter was written to Mrs. John Hay, wife of 
the deceased great Secretary of State, asking her to pur- 
chase that building for $25,000 for us and to permit us to 
pay her a fair interest and pay the principal in annual 
payments. The letter was written about the first of 
March. Almost by return mail Mrs. Hay repHed that 
she did not care to make so large an investment, but if 
we cared to go forward and purchase the building our- 
selves, that on April i she would give us $5000 on the 
first payment. Never will I forget the scene when that 
letter was read. 

Mr. H. D. Gordon had received the letter just as he 
was starting for the Board meeting, his face was radiant. 
When Mr. Wheeler came in the letter was put in his 
hands without comment. As soon as he read the words, 
"I will give you $5000 on the first payment," without 
waiting to finish the letter, he said, "Let us pray." We, 
on our knees, each one thanked God for the gift dictated 
by His Spirit, and asked God's blessing on the mag- 
nanimous woman who had obeyed the Spirit's order. 

The Building Committee eventually secured the prop- 
erty for $22,000, of which $5000 was to be a cash pay- 
ment, and by agreeing to pay $1750 annually, and to pay 
semi-annually a 5^ per cent interest. 

Think of the growth in spiritual power of a little or- 
ganization which in September, 1908, shuddered at a bill 
of $25, in the early spring of 191 1 joyously making itself 
responsible for $17,000 bearing a semi-annual interest 
amounting in the year to $850 ! 



52 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Since that time we have made three annual payments 
of $1750 each, and we have met all interest to date. 

Probably in no civilized country was there ever a 
dirtier house. The building had been occupied by some 
foreigners until it had become so vile that the police con- 
demned it and obliged them to move out. They took with 
them all gas fixtures, all sewerage, heating and water 
pipes ; in fact, wrecked the building, but a mission band is 
brave, and went valiantly to work. 

More than one hundred wagon loads of dirt were taken 
from the cellars. We know, for we paid ten cents a load to 
the dump. When we had put in $100 in glass, it scarcely 
made a mark, so large is the building. It has sixty-six 
rooms, some of them as large as the chapel of an ordi- 
nary church. 

The walls have been scraped and calcimined and white- 
washed; the entire woodwork inside and all the outside 
has been painted; new gas pipes and gas fixtures have 
been placed; new sewerage and bath-rooms have been 
prepared. Four new fire-escapes and an electric fire- 
alarm system installed ; a splendid French steel range has 
been set in the kitchen; hot and cold water supplied to 
various parts of the building, etc. 

The first meeting was held in our new building, 216 
John Marshall Place, N. W., on the evening of April 15, 
1911, Mr. Wheeler presiding. 

We found the roof leaked so badly that in case of 
storm some rooms became uninhabitable. Again I was 
obliged to personally guarantee the payment of $500 for 
a new roof. Again, Mr. Ernest Gichner came to my 
help. He put on a good roof, built up and pointed the 
thirteen chimneys, put ventilators in many chimneys, saw 
to resetting, reglazed all skylights, and permitted us to 



HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING 53 

pay him $25 per month till the debt was paid off. 

When the possibility of completing the first cleaning 
seemed most hopeless, when heat, water and gas pipes 
had to be replaced, several members of the Board pledged 
$100 each. To some of us that meant great self-denial. 
Mrs. Richard Butler gave $500 and Mrs. Spindle $200; 
in all we spent $5000 in repairing and cleaning that build- 
ing. Every step was made in faith. 

It was wonderful how our people sacrificed to get all 
this done; women who do not do such work at home 
came and scrubbed and cleaned; many a poor man gave 
a day's work. Three men who readily command $3 per 
day, worked three months each at $1 a day with room 
and board. The people of Washington sent us piles of 
old furniture, for which we were deeply grateful. Then 
Superintendent Kline got a great quantity of furniture 
and many feet of piping for conducting heat, and second- 
hand radiators at the sale of the old Riggs Hotel. W^e 
secured a good mechanic, and with our mechanics at the 
Mission, installed the heating plant. The expenses during 
that time were at least $200 per week. At our Board 
meeting one Tuesday, Treasurer Gordon reported $4.84 
on hand. All business was stopped immediately and we 
went to prayer telling our Father that we had but $4.84 
and the bills of the week would be due on Saturday. 
We had each of us done all we could afford. The follow- 
ing Tuesday the Treasurer reported all bills paid and 
$284 in the treasury. Thus God not only supplied all our 
wants, but graciously relieved our anxiety. 

SPEAKER CHAMP CLARK 

Rather an amusing incident occurred when our clean- 
ing was most strenuous. We have a large number of 



54 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

good women who will do good work if I lead, so on one 
occasion I took a tin bucket with rags, soap, scrub-brush, 
etc., and went to help on work rather out of my line. 
I started to return with the bucket in hand. When I came 
to the car I saw the Hon. Champ Clark, who had then 
very recently been elected Speaker, at the front of the 
car. I was careful to take the back seat, hoping he would 
not see me. I had barely got seated when he came back 
and took a seat beside me. I tried to apologize for my 
appearance and impedimenta. He said, "Oh, bother! 
Never mind. What fault are you Republicans finding 
with me now ?" and we went at the Reciprocity Bill, then 
before the House, with hammer and tongs. When I got 
off at Second Street, S. E., the Speaker carried the 
bucket and handed it to me in his gallant way, still talk- 
ing of the measure before Congress. I doubt if he recog- 
nized whether it was an old tin bucket or a jewel case 
which he transferred to me. 

As long as this is a faith chapter, I shall here insert a 
statement of how God sent the last $300 on our annual 
payment and semi-annual interest due and paid May 7, 

1913. 
This is from the June, 1913, number of Gospel Tidings: 

HOW THE LORD PAID THE DEBT 

Mrs. Monroe's Letter in Lutheran Observer of May 16 : 
"On May i (1913), we were owing at the Gospel Mis- 
sion on the building $15,500 with $406 semi-annual in- 
terest. We have agreed to pay $1750 each year, so we 
were responsible for $2156 on May I ; by special agree- 
ment it was not paid until the 7th. I want to tell my 
friends who have prayed with me in this struggle how 
the Lord led us. 



HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING 55 

"At the Board meeting, Tuesday, April 29, we had 
$1140 in the treasury. By Wednesday morning we had 
$1200. Thursday we had $1300, and on Friday, at Dr. 
Stearns's class, I reported $1400 in the treasury and re- 
quested God's children to ask for the $756 yet due. By 
Sunday, May 4, we had $1659, when Hon. B. H. Warner 
subscribed $200, bringing our fund to $1859. A small 
bill reduced it to $1856. 

"The gentleman who held the note telephoned from 
Baltimore that he would not come for his money until 
Wednesday, May 7. At the Tuesday evening meeting 
five of us prayed definitely for $300. On Wednesday 
morning, just after breakfast, a friend telephoned, 
Tlease come up at once.' Now, that is my writing day, 
and I felt I could hardly go, but my times are in His 
hands, and if He said *Go,' then that was my orders. I 
went at once, and my friend said, *I feel you are need- 
ing $300 on your debt, and the Lord woke me up to tell 
me to hand you $300, and I am prepared to pay it.' 

"To say how grateful we all are cannot be put into 
words. But at this time, when the city was being scoured 
for $300,000 for the Emergency Hospital, when the Ohio 
sufferers had claimed all we thought we could spare, for 
the Board of a little mission, dependent mostly on the 
poor, as the poor man's church, to pray down from 
heaven $2156 of a special fund, besides the running ex- 
penses, which are always very heavy, means more than 
money to us. It seems to be the divine seal of God's 
approval on our work. I had subscribed $500 for my- 
self and friends. He graciously paid through me $656, 
and now, with the $300, He has made my share $956. 

"Some of the readers of the Observer sent me money, 
but more prayed for our work. Now, join with us in 



56 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

praising God for a message straight from the throne of 
our dear, loving heavenly Father. 

"To everyone who helped, even to the amount of five 
cents; to those who denied themselves usual comforts 
to help the Mission; to those who gave to help provide 
shelter for the poor — to each of us He sends, I am sure, 
this dear message, *I glorify you in order that your faith 
may be strengthened and that you may glorify me/ If 
any of us has ever had any doubt of God's special provi- 
dence to His children, let this concrete example be a per- 
manent love-message of assurance to every such 
doubter." 

NEXT STEP 01 FAITH 

By June, 1913, we found that nearly every Sunday 
night more than one hundred persons had to be denied 
entrance on account of lack of room. We saw by taking 
down a partition on the north side of the chapel between 
chapel and hall, we could seat at least one hundred more. 
We were just over the strain of the last payment, and we 
were loath to ask our friends for more help, but as God 
continues to each of His children the blessings which 
they daily enjoy, so each child of God must continue to 
help in His work, and relying on Him "who worketh with 
us," we ordered the wall taken out at a cost of about 
$900, which afterward proved to be $1300. Again I had 
to make myself responsible for the payment of that 
amount. It was all paid on time. 

In this faith chapter I desire to insert the following 
from the Gospel Tidings of June, 191 3 : 

MR. wheeler's story 

"At the Sunday evening service, December 18, 19 12, 
Mr. Wheeler said: 'When I was in charge of religious 



HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING 57 

work at the United States jail some years ago, one Sun- 
day, after service, I went round, as was my custom, to 
shake hands with the men behind the bars. I came to a 
fine-looking man, to whom I said, "Why are you here? 
I have often seen you on the street, and I have thought 
of you as a good citizen." "O Mr. Wheeler, I have been 
a good citizen. My wife and I have a little store in 
Georgetown, where we sell oysters in the winter and 
ice cream in the summer. My wife gave me $65 to settle 
our bill with the wholesale oyster man, and I took a 
number of drinks, and finally went into the marble 
saloon and took a drink with some strangers, and as 
surely as I tell you I do not remember another thing 
until I found myself in a cell at the station house." ' 

"On further inquiry Mr. Wheeler found that the pris- 
oner was charged with passing counterfeit money. It 
appeared that after he came out of the saloon a Jew was 
crying clothing on D Street. This man went into the 
Jew's clothing store, bought a suit of clothes, for which 
he offered a $50 bill in payment. The Jew could not 
make change, so took it to a neighbor, wHo^ssured him 
the bill was bad, and the man's arrest immediately fol- 
lowed. 

"Mr. Wheeler went often to the cell to pray with and 
for the poor prisoner, who devoted his time to the study 
of the Gospels, He was soundly converted. Mr. Wheeler 
said, 'Do not trust alone to your lawyer. Appeal to Jesus 
Christ now to clear you, for, as far as I can see, man 
cannot.' 

"His lawyer told Mr. Wheeler that the court would 
surely send the prisoner to the penitentiary. On the 
morning of the trial several Christian men met together 
and prayed over the case. The court convened at 10 



/^)Nd ]joU 



58 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

A.M., and the case was immediately called. A stranger 
asked to be sworn as a witness. He said about this: 
*I was in Washington on the day this affair occurred. I 
do not often take a drink, but I happened to be in the 
saloon when this man came in. He took a drink with two 
young fellows who happened to be there, and the liquor 
made him drunk at once, when one of the young fellows 
said, "It is my turn to treat, and I will, if any of you 
can change a $50 bill." This man brought out lots of 
money, and got the $50 bill in exchange. I left Washing- 
ton the next day, that is how I was fortunate enough to 
remember the date. I got back yesterday, and happened 
to see a statement of this case in the evening's paper, and 
I felt simply compelled to come and give my testi- 
mony.' " 

The prisoner was reprimanded (which was unneces- 
sary, as he was a new creature in Christ Jesus), but the 
case against him was dismissed, as it was apparent there 
was no intent to defraud the Jew. His family nearly 
smothered him with kisses and embraces, and he walked 
out a free man. 

Skeptics may say this was mere chance. But how did 
it happen that the man came back on that day, saw that 
account in the paper, felt compelled to testify? No, God 
directed the case after it was committed to Him. 



< 



CHAPTER VII 
Varieties of Work in a Gospel Mission 

We are apt to think that all persons who accept the 
hospitality of the Mission are low-born people; we have 
not found it so. There have knelt at the altar of the Gos- 
pel Mission, priests and preachers, lawyers, doctors, mer- 
chants, engineers, college men and poor chaps who have 
had no education but that of the street. 

I remember one night when we were located at 1230 
Pennsylvania Avenue, there knelt at the altar three men, 
one an ex-preacher, one a graduate of the University of 
Virginia, and one the nephew of an ex-President of the 
United States. We believed they were all converted. 
The preacher was in bad physical condition, and we felt 
it necessary to put him into a Christian institution for 
such as he for medical treatment. The taste for liquor 
had gone, but the ulcerated stomach and bowels re- 
mained, also his nerves were in a dangerous condition. 
How we ever obtained money enough to pay that man's 
bills for six weeks is yet a marvel, but we did it. He 
came out a redeemed, humble man. He went to the 
pastor of a large church in Brooklyn, whom he had 
known at college, and before that large church he ac- 
knowledged his sin with shame and deep contrition. The 
church had grace enough to accept him. The congrega- 
tion opened a rescue mission, supported entirely by that 
church, where for five years he has preached the gospel 
and has saved a hundredfold more souls than the big 
church which supports the mission. 

The Virginian never again crossed our path, but Mr. 

(59) 



6o TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Buchanan died after three years of a good life, an hon- 
ored member of an Episcopal church in Washington. 

Men who have been dissipated, even when redeemed 
and reformed do not, as a usual thing, live to old age. 
The wages of sin is death to the body, though the soul 
may enter upon eternal hfe. 

Among the sorrowful who nightly are to be found at 
the missions of this city either pensioned by their family 
or the government, but not permitted to return to their 
homes, is one man who was once one of the best mail 
agents between Washington and New York City. 
Another, the son of an ex-cabinet officer. Another has 
been Chief Mathematician in a government bureau, be- 
sides about twenty wrecks of various government de- 
partments. 

I remember the case of a well-known man in Philadel- 
phia. He was converted one extremely cold night at the 
Breakfast Association. No provision is made there for 
beds, so that poor fellow started "to carry the banner" — 
that is to walk the streets all night. About three o'clock 
in the morning he was taken with a congestive chill. A 
kind policeman, seeing the man was ill and not drunk, 
sent him at once to that blessed little Presbyterian hospi- 
tal in West Philadelphia. 

It happened that one of the Board of Directors of the 
Breakfast Association, Mr. Tibbals, had given the poor 
fellow his card. The authorities, finding the card, sent 
for Mr. Tibbals. The sick man had revived enough when 
Mr. Tibbals arrived, to give his true name and the ad- 
dress of his parents, which was a number on Fifth Ave- 
nue, New York City. That street was then a residence 
street for very wealthy people. Just as soon as it could 
be done, a telegram for $ioo was received in reply and 



VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION 6l 

we were directed to do all we could for him. But the 
man died before night, and Mr. Tibbals was asked to 
take the body to New York. The coffin was carried into 
one of the handsomest brown-stone residences on that 
handsome avenue. 

The mother and father met Mr. Tibbals, and in the 
parlor the coffin was opened for identification. It was 
the body of the only son of that proud family. The 
father gave one look, one great sob, then seized his hat 
and fled. The mother said, "O Mr. Tibbals, you think I 
am grief-stricken over his death! But I am not even 
sorry. This son has been a drunkard from childhood. 
We could not keep him at home, for he would steal 
everything he could carry away and sell it for whisky. 
Since we lost sight of him, I have never opened a paper 
without fearing I should read his name in connection 
with some awful crime. No, I am relieved. I shall know 
where he is. I have often gotten into my carriage and 
have had the driver go up and down this street (which 
was then covered with cobblestones) as fast as the law 
permitted him to drive, and I have screamed and 
screamed my heart out. I have gone to the seashore 
to scream to let off my nervous strain. Had I given just 
one such scream in my own house, I would this day be 
in a mad house. Oh, no, for this death, after what you 
hope was a conversion, I am deeply grateful to God !" 

And yet people wonder at Carrie Nation. It is a won- 
der that grief like that does not make iconoclasts of all 
mothers whose sons go down the Jericho road. 

The following testimony, given in the winter of 191 1, 
by one who had stood on many rounds of the social lad- 
der, a man who accepted redemption, and is now kept by 
the power of God: 



62 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

A REMARKABLE TESTIMONY 

"When Brother Wheeler requested me to address this 
meeting, I felt somewhat nervous, for the simple reason 
that I had never in my life addressed a religious meeting 
before, and I so stated to Mr. Wheeler. However, I 
could not refuse him, and here I am. 

"True, in years gone by, while down South, I have 
spoken to political gatherings. Since I got religion, I 
stopped that. If I should ever make a political address 
again, it will be in the interest of the Prohibition party. 
I regret that I have no experience in addressing a re- 
ligious meeting, and I, therefore, ask you to be patient 
with me, especially as, due to previous engagements, I 
was unable to prepare myself, except in so far that I have 
decided to make a few remarks on personal salvation, 
and by the term personal I have my own in mind. 

"I want to tell you something about my own experience, 
how I had lost my God and found Him again. A man 
born and reared on the Bowery or any of its side streets 
in New York City, a man who from his childhood on 
has been influenced by evil-minded and sinful people, has 
never heard of Christ, and in the course of time becomes 
a hardened criminal, such a man may be condemned by 
mankind, but never by God. 

"A man bom and raised in a comfortable, refined 
home, who has been taught the doctrines of Christ, has 
confessed his belief that Christ is His Saviour, has a full 
knowledge of right and wrong and of the duties he owes 
his fellow-man — if such a man becomes a willing victim 
to sensual pleasures, he may not be condemned by man- 
kind, but God will condemn him, unless he repents and 
starts to lead a new, clean life. 

"Only too often men are so completely wrapped up in 



VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION 63 

their personal matters, as, for instance, in their business 
affairs, that they absolutely lose sight of the obligations 
they owe God, and also their fellow-men, and, as a 
natural result, neglect their souls. 

"I honestly believe that such a man is more to be 
pitied than the ones who, either through their own fault 
or being victims of circumstances, have lost their hold 
in life and finally found themselves Mown and out.' A 
man may temporarily be without food and shelter, but this 
is nothing compared to trying to live without God. How- 
ever, a man who is a wanderer on the face of the earth 
and who has lost his God, is indeed a wretched being. I 
am speaking from experience. 

"For years I had violated the divine laws. I had been 
what is generally termed a society man, 'way down South. 
I enjoyed a large income, but I spent everything for 
worldly pleasures. Finally, I became disgusted with my 
surroundings ; but, better still, I became disgusted with 
myself. I drifted to New York City, determined to live 
a new life. This occurred about fourteen years ago. Up 
to that time I had not been within or even near a church 
for seven years. The New York atmosphere apparently 
did not agree with me. Instead of leading a clean, moral 
life — by that I understood at that time a life simply con- 
forming to the requirements of the social laws (the 
divine laws did not exist for me) — I became worse than I 
had ever been. 

"Although I made good money, as the saying is, I was, 
nevertheless, broke all the time. I voluntarily gave up 
several splendid positions because objections had been 
made to my reporting late in the morning for duty, and, 
having become rather nervous, I practically found it im- 
possible to get along with anyone. I had become a slave 



64 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

to my habits, and finally associated with the *has beens/ 
as they are sometimes called. 

"There is not a man in this room who knows more 
about the life on the east side of New York than I do. 
I know full well what it means to be hungry and homeless. 
I have worked as a longshoreman, newspaperman, cook, 
bookkeeper and correspondent. I have been running hot 
frankfurter stands, etc., sometimes I had two jobs in one 
day. I was given a wonderful taste of the ups and downs 
in New York City, especially the downs. I certainly am 
grateful to Providence for subjecting me to that awful 
experience in New York City, for in that way I learned 
to know human nature. I learned to know that the so- 
called submerged masses were composed of human be- 
ings, not brainless individuals; that, as a matter of fact, 
there are better people, especially morally, among the 
poor than among the so-called society people. 

"I might be asked why it was that I did not find God 
again, when I was down and out in New York City. 
Christ was knocking, knocking all the time to enter my 
heart, but I had become a cynic and would not let Him in. 
I used to think in those times that if there was a just 
God I would not be in such a sorrowful plight. The 
trouble with me was, I did not have enough sense to ad- 
mit that my condition was simply due to my own faults 
and to nothing else. 

"During my stay in New York I have met many 
saintly people, men and women who devoted their time, 
energy and money to the uplift of the homeless and the 
friendless. Those good people tried their best to have 
me converted. They did not succeed because I was not 
willing and because I actually believed most of my 
friends who were in charge of the several missions that 



VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION 65 

I was in the habit of attending were suffering from hallu- 
cinations, although perfectly honest in their self-imposed 
task. 

"The greatest evil in New York City is, as everywhere, 
the saloon. The majority of you men present here this 
evening must admit if it were not for the saloon you 
would not be here as applicants for bodily assistance. 
There are evil spirits in us and around us to lead us 
astray; the devil's worst temptation is whisky or any 
other intoxicating drink. Man was made in the image of 
God; when a man gets drunk he is worse than a beast. 
A man will get drunk again and again, a beast will not, 
having seemingly more sense than a man. The saloon 
is the greatest foe to the spread of the gospel. In most 
cases the saloon-keeper knows quite well that he is a 
highway robber, that his business is ruining untold 
thousands of men, women and children, but as his so- 
called business is a legalized one, he may continue in- 
directly committing murder. 

"Really I have more respect for the highwayman and 
robber than for a saloon-keeper. During my voluntary 
and involuntary observations in New York and else- 
where, I have come to the conclusion that Christ would 
conquer the world in much less time if only the awful 
saloon and dive could be eliminated. 

"In my travels in this country and in the foreign 
countries, I have met many people who by word and 
deed were spreading the gospel. Some of them natur- 
ally inquired of me whether I had been converted. My 
answer was 'No,' because, as a matter of fact, I did not 
know the meaning of the word converted. I was told 
to seek Christ and the meaning would be made plain to 
me. Evidently I was not sufficiently willing to meet 
5 



66 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Christ half way, and thus I wasted years of my life 
before I finally submitted to the pleadings of the Saviour. 

"While I was in the Philippine Islands, twelve years 
ago, I was deeply impressed with the different attitudes 
of the officers and enlisted men when on the firing line. 
It was plain, even to the casual observer, that the men 
who were thoroughly devout Christians — and there are 
many thousands of Christians in our army — were not 
afraid to face the bullets, but the men who were agnostics 
and unbelievers, whatever that may mean, were so 
nervous and excited that they hardly knew what they 
were doing, or they were downright cowards. 

"In my own case I was not afraid of death, as I had 
given very little thought to such a possibility; besides I 
had become more or less indifferent to life and possible 
death. One hot summer day, while fighting the Filipinos, 
I was shot through the head. An army surgeon band- 
aged me up as best he could and then assured me I was 
very likely not to live through the day. 

"If I ever got scared, it was then, and if ever I prayed, 
it was then, in spite of the excruciating pains I suffered. 
The words of a comrade, who was a fine soldier, though 
not a thorough Christian, uttered by him shortly before 
I was wounded, were constantly ringing in my ears, 
namely, 'A man may possibly live without Christ, but 
he cannot die without Christ.' 

"For a month or so the doctors and nurses did not 
think I would live, but God spared my life, and no doubt 
for a purpose. For six months I was unable to utter a 
word, as the bullet had passed through my tongue. It 
was well for me I could not talk to any human being, 
but I could talk to God. During those months I lived 
my entire life over again. I promised God to become a 



VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION 67 

better man. True, I became more earnest in my views 
of life, I realized the value of the golden rule, but I was 
not converted. I could not yet understand the meaning 
of the word. 

"The Red Cross nurses, who at the beginning of the 
trouble in the Philippines were in charge of the hospi- 
tal, were not only experts in their profession, but were 
splendid types of self-sacrificing Christians, and their 
presence alone made the patients think of their mothers 
or sisters or other dear ones at home, thousands of miles 
away, and thus unconsciously these nurses, noble repre- 
sentatives of womanhood, frequently wrought a change 
for the better in the hearts of the wounded soldiers. 

"While I was a patient at Manilla I saw many a man 
pass out of this life. The man with Christ in his heart 
died with a smile on his lips, knowing he had done his 
duty and that Christ would meet him. The unbeliever 
suffered agonies. 

"I was wounded almost twelve years ago, not a day 
has passed without my communicating with God, and 
God was always willing to talk with me, when I ad- 
dressed Him. As a result of my experience in the Phil- 
ippines I spent almost three years in the hospital. I 
thank God He made me suffer, it was the only possible 
way for me to find Him again. My conversion did not 
take place all at once, it took place gradually. God used 
different means and ways in recalling me. I cannot men- 
tion them here without baring my life to you, which may 
be of no interest to you. Let me assure you no man can 
succeed without Christ. A man may amass a fortune, 
but if he neglects his soul his life is of little value. 

"Among the applicants at different missions, I have 
met men who claimed the good people in charge were 



68 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA ' 

nothing but hypocrites. It is certainly strange that those 
fellows apply to hypocrites for help. Why don't they go 
to the agnostic or to the unbeliever ? 

"Follow my advice, first seek Christ; He is always 
ready and willing to accept you; the rest is easy. A 
drunkard cannot become sober by taking the Keeley 
cure or anything like that. The desire for drink is often 
inherited, medicine will not cure the sufferer, only God's 
grace can cure him. 

"Why is it that the man who lives with Christ is always 
happy, even under adverse circumstances, and the man 
without Him is, as a rule, nothing but an egotist? You 
can easily find the answer yourself. Come to Christ, and, 
if you are willing to come, why not now ?" 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Need of Rescue Work 
As early as the fall of 1909 we put out this call: 

CENTRAL BUREAU OF LABOR 

"The District of Columbia needs a Labor Bureau to 
which our Mission and the Associated Charities can send 
men and women out of employment. The Bureau, being 
a government affair, should know where labor is needed 
and should furnish transportation to such places, whether 
it be to the cotton fields of the South, the harvest fields of 
the West, or the manufactories of New England. 

"Such a Bureau should secure from the railroads con- 
cessions, such as they give to immigrants, in sending our 
unemployed to the fields of labor. 

"Unless Society, with a big *S,' reaches a hand to the 
unemployed these people will surely become a menace 
to our great cities, and on some sad day they will dyna- 
mite our public buildings. 

"We, who work among them, know their sorrow, their 
anguish, their despair, which will end in desperation, un- 
less relief is furnished. 

"Use your influence to secure a Central National 
Bureau of Labor for the unemployed. The strong and 
wealthy can care for themselves, but a good government 
should concern itself with its weaker members." 

The Survey (published in New York) is now (1913) 
steadily advocating something of this kind, and now Con- 
gress (October, 19 13,) is considering the matter. 

(69) 



70 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

FOR THE UNEMPLOYED 

An organization or industrial army of the United 
States was provided for in a bill presented to the Senate 
by Senator Poindexter, upon the request of R. A. Dague, 
of Creston, Iowa. Eligible to membership in the army 
would be any unemployed man more than sixteen years 
old. The Secretary of Labor would be the recruiting 
officer, but an "industrial general," at a salary of $250 
a month, would command the forces. The army, accord- 
ing to the bill, would not bear side arms or fight bloody 
battles, but would be employed in labor at harbors, forts, 
government buildings, irrigation ditches, canals and other 
public works of the nation. State and municipality. Resi- 
dents in the United States who become members would 
receive $2 a day, "together with board and lodging," 
while those who have been in America less than five 
years would receive only $1.50. Foreigners who here- 
after come to America would receive only 25 cents a day, 
which would be wrong. We expect from the United 
States government that ideal justice, even to a foreign 
workman, which we shall each receive when we stand in 
the presence of Eternal Justice. 

All this shows that the idea of a Bureau of Labor 
which will help the laborer is steadily growing. 

AN INCIDENT OF THE WINTER OF I9IO 

One day Mrs. Kline, the wife of the Superintendent 
of the Gospel Mission, phoned me, "We have a man here 
so covered with vermin that I cannot let him into the 
house, yet he seems to be an educated man. [This was at 
the Industrial Department on Fourteenth Street, before 
we had our new building,] What shall I do now?" "Call 
Donavan, Hall and Happy, and take him to the wood- 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 7I 

shed and have a tub of warm water; let the men give 
him a thorough bath, barber him and wrap him in blankets, 
till we can get clothes for him." That was done. We found 
Taylor an educated man, a graduate of the University 
of Pennsylvania, the editor of a paper in a suburb of 
Philadelphia. He claimed that he had been "shang- 
haied," that is, drugged and carried on board an oyster 
boat as a common laborer. He had gone to Baltimore 
to go on a drunk, hoping his friends would not find him 
out, but his Nemesis was there waiting for him. 

He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had 
been forced to bunk with negroes and common rousta- 
bouts. After he became sober, I fancy the owners of 
the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and 
would gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare ap- 
proach land lest their entire crew escape ; at last he was 
put aboard a passing boat and sent to Washington. He 
was over six feet high, of fine physique, about thirty-two 
years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing 
suitable for such a person. The day came when he was 
able to attend the services at the Mission. He kneeled 
at the altar, and we hoped he was converted. We greatly 
wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men, but that 
would have made his case public, and he did not desire 
that. He readily secured a place on one of our city 
papers as the purveyor of automobile news, but when 
pay day came he got drunk and fell down the stairs and 
broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he 
was obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hos- 
pital. We now wrote to his family, and his mother came 
for him in a big touring car from Philadelphia and took 
him home, but the exposure and dissipation had done 
their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He 



72 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

seemed, from all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only 
at the judgment day shall we know whether he entered 
into the rest prepared for the children of God only. 

Another experience in the winter of 191 1 gave us a 
still lower opinion of the oyster men of the lower Chesa- 
peake Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me, one cold slippery 
day, "Do come down at once, the oyster men are in. 
Mr. Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition." 
I went at once. The halls were full of them ; many had 
only overalls, shirt and shoes without stockings; they 
looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense 
till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing 
room they would raid it, so great were their needs. 

It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I 
began phoning to members of the Lutheran Church 
whom I believed would come. One man in a bank said, 
"I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather 
for that class of men." I replied, "I saw you at com- 
munion last Sunday, and I venture you promised your 
God to serve wherever you were needed; here is your 
first call." "I shall come at once and bring three other 
members of the church with me." 

That winter the Luther Memorial Church, of Erie, 
Pa., had sent us a large box of men's clothing, every 
article mended, clean and in good condition, and just the 
week before a charitable organization, at Chevy Chase, 
Md., had sent us two large barrels of men's clothing, and 
a full half bushel of socks nicely darned and every article 
clean. 

So we put trousers on one pil?, coats on another, vests 
on another, underclothes on another, a churchman at each 
pile. I had charge of the socks, then Mr. lift, of the 
Luther Memorial Church, in the next room superin- 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK J^ 

tended the trying on, fitting and exchanging garments. 
As we handed each garment we said about this, "The 
ladies of the different churches send you these garments 
with their love and sympathy." Many a poor fellow, 
all unused to blessing, said, "God bless the churches for 
remembering such as us." In an hour's time we clothed 
over seventy-five men. A few did not need complete 
outfits. We never supposed we had that many garments 
- on hand, but that day cleared out all we had in reserve. 

Among these men were two Welsh boys, both Chris- 
tians, not long in this country. They had not known the 
strength of American liquors (which were doubtless 
drugged) ; they were very contrite and were at once put 
to work, one as a furnaceman, the other in the wood 
yard. We hear the United States revenue cutters have 
been after the oyster men and shanghaiing is no longer a 
common crime. 

When a friend looked in on that crowd of superior 
business men helping distribute clothing and saying 
words of consolation to the broken men, he said, "I be- 
lieve in my soul you would order in the President of the 
United States to help at the Gospel Mission." "Oh, no !" 
I replied, "President Taft, good man as he is, would not 
be permitted to drive so much as a tack at the Gospel 
Mission. He does not recognize Jesus as His Saviour; 
only orthodox Christians who can tell the sinner of the 
redeeming power of Jesus the Christ can successfully 
work in a rescue mission like this." 

THE HOLIDAYS 

are a sore trial to the homeless or to the recently be- 
reaved. Often women of the highest social rank come 
to the Gospel Mission on Thanksgiving, Christmas and 



74 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

New Year's, when we give a good dinner to everyone 
who applies. (These women forget their own woes as 
they serve others.) The subjoined newspaper letter will 
give you a good picture of one such occasion : 

THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE MISSION OF I9IO 

"It is a very curious thing to say, that while I saw no 
relative of mine, being far separated from all of my kin- 
dred, while I had no time to accept the hospitality of 
friends, but ate my dinner at my boarding house, so as to 
be at the Mission for service, yet it was one of the hap- 
piest days of my life. It is wonderful the kindness God 
puts into the hearts of His people at this season. Not a 
member of the Mission has wealth, yet God gave us 
means through His children to feed between three and 
four hundred people. A little Ohio Joint Synod Luth- 
eran church at Fulton, Md., sent us a dozen chickens, two 
bushels of potatoes, some fine apples, turnips, beets, cab- 
bage, etc. We bought fifteen turkeys, a lot of hams, then 
tne New Willard Hotel prepared our fowls and other 
meats, and the Raleigh Hotel prepared and cooked all 
our vegetables, adding enormous pans of baked beans, 
and all this they did free of charge. 

"Bakers sent us bread and pies, florists sent us great 
quantities of flowers, so that we were able to feed all 
comers and send out a number of baskets to poor fami- 
lies. This was the bodily side ; the spiritual side was even 
better. 

"The services began at twelve o'clock noon, and lasted 
until ten at night, with a change of leaders, musicians and 
varying audiences each hour. 

"Two boys, about sixteen and eighteen years old, had 
walked all the way from Richmond, Va. As they fed 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 75 

their famished bodies, one said, 'O Jim, did you ever be- 
fore hear of such a place where one can really get all he 
wants to eat, can get a hot bath, can get one night's lodg- 
ing all for nothing? I am so tired I just couldn't walk 
any more!' 

"One man, about thirty years of age, simply prostrated 
himself at the altar, and cried aloud to God for pardon. 
After he rose he said about this, *I came from the work- 
house this morning an angry, outraged man, after thirty 
days' sentence. I felt my punishment was a great injus- 
tice. My hand was against every man, for I felt every 
man's hand was against me. I was ready for any crime. 
Someone met me and said, "Go to the Gospel Mission." 
I answered, 'I prefer to go to the saloon and get drunk 
and forget for a few hours my sorrows and loneliness.' 
But the friend brought me here. You have given me a 
good dinner, but that is the least, you have reached the 
friendly hand. Brother Wheeler says I can make this my 
headquarters till I get work. I am a skilled mechanic, 
and I can soon get my place back again, and now I want 
to say God has forgiven me my sins, and they are so black 
and so many. I was a Christian in my early life, so I 
know what I am talking about when I promise my God 
and all you, my friends, that, God helping me, I, this day, 
take Christ for my Saviour and I will love and serve Him 
all the days of my life.' That of itself paid me for all I 
could do. 

"From three to five people came to the altar for 
prayer each hour, and the last hour saw nine young men 
pleading for forgiveness, and promising a new life. In 
all, I should say, that about fifty people asked for prayers 
and twenty-five people sought pardon. 

"We had a great singer, Mrs. Fitch, whose singing was 



76 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

greatly used of God to call men to repentance. Thanks- 
giving Day was a great day on earth, at the Gospel Mis- 
sion, and a great day among the angels of heaven who 
saw sinners redeemed." 

CHRISTMAS AT THE GOSPEL MISSION 

of 1909 was described by the writer in the following 
sketch of the January, 1910, Gospel Tidings: 

"Christmas at a mission takes on a great element of 
thanksgiving; first for the great gift of God — and no 
anthems sound so sweet, so deep, reaching into the deep 
places of the soul as, *Now, when Jesus was born in 
Bethlehem.* 

"The first thing on Christmas Day was to remember 
our brothers in bonds. Down at the barracks in the 
guard-house, we have two converted men. One a soldier 
whom we believe is receiving four times the punishment 
for neglect of target practice which he ought to receive ; 
we can only counsel patience, comfort by our visits and 
send him a good dinner. 

"Then a dear Jewish brother is there. He had been 
in the army two years ago, but he was baited, tormented 
and outraged in his poetic soul until he deserted. After 
that he was converted, and felt with us that he must go 
back and take whatever the United States had for him. 
One of our workers went with him to the Secretary of 
War, who said, Why, man, don't come to me ; take a car- 
riage for fear you be arrested on the street.' Mr. Elli- 
son, our helper, took a carriage and went directly to the 
Commandant at the barracks. The Commandant said, 
*We are sorry for Mr. L., but he will get two years in the 
penitentiary at hard labor.' 

"Mr. Ellison said, ^Commander, this man is the servant 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK "J^ 

of the living God; you will give to this Jew that mercy 
you yourself will at the last expect from the Judge of all 
the earth, who came to this world as a Jew/ Well, it 
would be a long story to tell of the court-martial, but, in 
answer to prayer, the Jew got only six months in the 
guard house, and that time will expire this month. 

"Then two poor workmen are in the hospital, and four 
sinners who promised reformation in the workhouse, 
must have a remembrance. Kindness in shame often 
leads men to Christ. 

"But the great event of the day was the service from 
twelve to one o'clock, followed by a dinner at which from 
two hundred to three hundred lonely men were fed. In 
the evening a service, at which the old, old story of love is 
told, heart-broken men are redeemed, and we all go home 
wondering at the never-ending miracle of the gospel, 
which takes tongues which blaspheme and makes them 
sing God's praises, feet that walk in the ways of sin and 
makes them run in the ways of righteousness, hands that 
steal and makes them do God's service. Oh, it is a won- 
derful gospel, and a wonderful Saviour! 

" *0 ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise 
and exalt Him above all forever. O ye servants of the 
Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all 
forever. O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye 
the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O ye 
that are holy and humble of heart, bless ye the Lord, and 
praise and exalt Him above all forever.' " 

NEW year's EVE 

And New Year's at a Rescue Mission is an interesting 
time. Men have wandered the streets for a week, when 
it seemed to them every other human being on earth was 



78 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

happy but themselves; they see happiness in every pass- 
ing face, they have caught ghmpses of Christmas trees 
through open doors, they have sensed the appetizing 
smells of good dinners, they have witnessed at the rail- 
road stations and even on the streets the reunion of 
families, they have heard the deep-toned organs from 
churches, they have heard the ragtime music of happy 
people about the home piano, and they only unloved, un- 
loving, uncomforted, lonely men walk the lonely streets 
of our great cities. 

Is it any wonder that memory calls up the time when 
they too were in happy homes, when mothers' arms en- 
circled them, when a father's benediction was on their 
young heads, and, like the prodigal son, they say, "I will 
arise and go to my Father" ? 

Every one of them knows that sin is the cause of his 
downfall, and they also know that they must get right 
with God before they can forsake evil habits. Scarcely 
one of them but what has tried again and again to leave 
off their grosser sins but have failed, but when at the 
watch-night service they are told of a Saviour mighty to 
save, hope comes again to the broken-hearted. 

I remember one occasion at the Breakfast Association, 
Philadelphia, at the twilight service. New Year's Eve, I 
saw five hundred men stand for prayer at one time. Our 
Mission is much smaller, but on New Year's Eve and 
during New Year's Day, when we have a continuous 
service from 12 o'clock midday to 9.30 p.m., with an 
entire change of leaders and musicians each hour, I have 
seen your nominal Christian, the toper, the criminal, all 
so overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit 
that social differences melted away and they knelt side 
by side at the mercy seat ; we have seen fifty people enter 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 79 

into covenant relations with God in that pivotal period 
of the year, and we have seen most of them keep the 
faith. 

Think of a church holding a meeting nine and a half 
hours long; in most churches the pastor and the elders 
would have the last three hours or more all alone. But 
at the Mission the interest deepens so that it is hard to 
dismiss even at a late hour. 

THE FORGER FROM NEW HAVEN 

It was at one of those long services I saw a New 
England man brought under deep conviction, and at last 
yield to the Spirit, make confession and receive Christ. 

It was about 4 p. m. when he arose to tell his story of 
sin. He said, "I have committed a crime against the 
State, and I want to know if I can be forgiven before 
that is made good. I want to see three members of the 
Board alone." Three of the men went into consultation 
with him. It proved that he had forged a check at New 
Haven for $300, had collected the money and had es- 
caped. 

He was told, "God will forgive you now and under- 
take for you in case you promise full restitution." He 
kneeled at the altar, began to pray out loud, promised 
restitution and promised to bear patiently any punish- 
ment the State demanded. 

A worker was sent with him to New Haven. He went 
first to his own father, who said, "John, I never want 
to see your face here ; you had no business to come back, 
for you will be sent to prison and disgrace us all." "But, 
father, I am converted, I mean to take my punishment, 
then live a true man ever after." "Oh ! that is different ; 
in that case, I will help you all I can." 



8o TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

They went at once to the man whose name had been 
forged. They found him very bitter at first, but when 
John told his story of how ashamed and sorry he was, 
and added, "I have come back to take my punishment, 
then I want to be a good man and a good citizen all the 
rest of my Hfe." At this point the father said, "Mr. 
Percy, I will gladly pay back the $300 and interest if you 
think you can forgive John." That was done and the 
prosecution withdrawn. 

The episode had a little after-clap. John came back to 
Washington, and came at once to the writer. He said, 
"Mrs. Monroe, I want you to ask Miss Stanislaus if she 
will marry me." "Why, ask her yourself, man ; I am not 
in practice in handling love matters." "No, you see my 
red head and freckled face and freckled hands make me 
so homely I am afraid to ask. Do see her for me." This 
I did. She accepted him, and he obtained a situation in 
the mountains of North Carolina as a school teacher. 
He preaches on Sunday and they both teach all week and 
seem to be doing good work. 

The Gospel Tidings, of December, 1910, had this 
notice : 

WHAT WILL YOU DO, FELLOW-CHRISTIANS ? 

"Eleven men, cold, hungry and friendless, the night of 
December 5, said, 'Mr. Kline, for God's sake, give us 
work!' He replied, *We do not have the work to give 
until we get wood-cutting machines.' Mrs. Monroe said, 
T shall trust God's people to help me on that, even though 
the horse and wagon are not yet paid for.' So she person- 
ally took the risk of the $250 needed to put in the machin- 
ery. Her friends will remember that a great fire three 
years ago not only destroyed her property, but also her 
means of making money. 




lO AND 15 CENT DORMITORIES 



THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 8l 

" 'Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will 
deliver him in the time of trouble.' 

"The Gospel Mission Board feel that when the neces- 
sities of men are so great as in this call that it is God's 
call to help by giving them means to help themselves. 
Maybe in these suffering men your Saviour passes by." 

The Christian people of Washington made a generous 
response to that call, and by the next issue of the Tidings 
we announced that we could give fifty cents a day for 
six hours' work, leaving time to hunt a better place, and 
yet pay lodgings and food. 

The October Tidings of 19 lo said : 

A MENACE 

"What is the most important question now in Wash- 
ington? From our standpoint it is the care of the un- 
fortunate and the sinful. Why? In order to protect 
your home. When a man walks the streets hungry, cold 
and friendless, and looks through the window of your 
happy home and he sees you surrounded with the com- 
forts he lacks, do you know you are in danger? Unless 
the unfortunate are comforted, they will surely dyna- 
mite our great cities. 

"The Gospel Mission stands between you and this dan- 
ger. We make these sons of sorrow realize that they 
need be only temporarily sidetracked from the great high- 
way of success, that the grace of God, their renewed will 
power and our friendly hand may yet restore them to 
home, friends and society, and make them useful men." 
6 



CHAPTER IX 
The Penny Lunch and Free Dispensary 

The following is a letter written by Mr. George W. 
Wheeler, which was published in our Gospel Tidings, of 
February, 191 1 : 

penny lunch 

"In an experience of twenty-six years in active, earnest, 
aggressive Rescue Mission work in this city, the writer 
cannot recall that any line of secular work taken up for 
the amelioration of the poor has ever called forth such 
universal expressions of interest, sympathy and co- 
operation as the 'Penny Lunch and Newsboys' Waiting 
Room,' opened by the Gospel Mission, at 304 Fourteenth 
Street, on Saturday, February 4. The city papers pub- 
lished pictures of the interior and exterior, and a portrait 
of our Superintendent, Mr. Kline, and were most gener- 
ous in their endorsement of the enterprise, while the 
New York Times and other papers spread the news far 
and wide that the cost of living had been solved in Wash- 
ington by the Gospel Mission 'Penny Lunch! 

"The opening of this lunch-room was made possible 
by a noble Christian woman of wealth, who was born, 
reared and now resides in this city. Her interest was 
aroused by reading a statement of the work and needs 
of the Gospel Mission, prepared by our Superintendent, 
and she came to see about the matter, learned its approx- 
imate cost, and sent a check to pay the expenses. 

"For two weeks or more Mr. Kline and his assistants 
were busy papering, painting, etc., and finally the steam 

(82) 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 83 

table and coffee urns, with many other essentials of a 
twentieth century up-to-date lunch-room were installed 
and the doors were opened to a waiting crowd. Mrs. 
Kline oversees the cooking, and everything is as clean 
and neat as in one's home. 

"The menu consists of the following articles: Coffee, 
I penny ; bread or rolls, i penny ; beans, i penny ; dough- 
nuts, I penny; sour, i penny; beef stew, 3 pennies; one- 
half pie, 3 pennies. A lunch, consisting of soup, meat, 
vegetables, bread and coffee, 5 cents. This brings a well- 
cooked, clean, nourishing meal within the reach of all 
who have any income whatever. 

"It was amusing to see the class of men and boys who 
came to have their appetites satisfied at the lowest cost. 
Newsboys, messenger boys, laboring men, teamsters, and 
all kinds of indescribables came, and they appeared 
greatly surprised to find such an attractive room with 
all the 'latest improvements' found in a lunch-room. And 
how they did eat! A big soup plate filled to the brim 
with bean soup, a big china cup filled with steaming hot 
coffee, a big brown roll or three slices of Corby's *Moth- 
er's Bread.' These were good, and 'mighty filling at the 
price.' 

"Well, the 'Penny Lunch' is launched, and whether the 
prices charged will pay the cost of the material, cooking 
and serving, or not, we feel certain that any little defi- 
ciency that may occur will be cheerfully met by the well- 
to-do of our community. 

"A coffee-roasting firm has pledged five pounds of 
good coffee each week for use at the 'Penny Lunch' room, 
and we are sure dealers in other lines will be glad to 
assist. Corby Brothers have been furnishing from fifty 
to seventy-fi-ve loaves of bread for our 'bread line' for 



84 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

many months, and Browning & Baines, coffee dealers, 
have supplied six pounds of coffee a week for a long time 
past. 

"We greatly appreciate the generous co-operation of 
all these dear friends, who help us to help others to help 
themselves." 

The benefits of the Penny Lunch can never be told till 
the books of eternity are opened, but some idea may be 
gathered when we state that the report of the bread line 
from May 12, 191 1, to May 12, 1912, was 41,750, but the 
report from May 12, 1912, to May 12, 1913, was 18,950. 
The Bread Line is the name of a service at 6 a.m., the 
year round, when bread and black coffee is served to all 
who come for it. If people will come before daylight in 
the winter, or at that early hour in the summer for coffee, 
without cream or sugar, and a quarter of a loaf of bread, 
we believe they need it, and we gladly give it, not as a 
charity, but as a visible token of our sympathy. Now, 
the fact that 22,800 fewer people took bread and coffee 
free in the year 1912 to 1913, compared with the preced- 
ing year, can only be accounted for that when a man has 
a few pennies in his pocket he could buy a satisfactory 
breakfast, and gladly did so rather than to line up for an 
unrequited kindness. 

How shamed many men were to take food in the bread 
line, but the loving word sweetened many a bitter cup. 
Once a hand so unusually white and well-kept reached 
for the cup of coffee. Mrs. Kline looked up and saw the 
face of a man who had been a minister of the gospel. 
She said, "Brother, take only the coffee, we want you to 
take breakfast at our family table this morning." He sat 
down to drink the coffee with bitter tears coursing down 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 85 

his shamed face. Of course, every kindness was shown 
him, "for need has its right, and necessity its claim," then 
the blessed Spirit came in and lo, he prayed, and God 
received back to a useful life a man who had found sor- 
row and sin bitter and the tears of remorse salt. 

WHAT DR. HALLIMOND, OF THE NEW YORK BOWERY 
MISSION^ SAYS ABOUT THE BREAD LINE 

"There are in the Bowery men who never sleep in a 
lodging house because they have not the price, and they 
get their bed either by stealing or begging, and eat out of 
the garbage boxes. You who have never been to the 
Bowery know nothing of the agony or remorse that these 
men feel. Now, what are we to do with them ? There is 
not anybody to look after them but us. Oh, the horrors 
of the homeless man ! It is the many little comforts that 
go to make our comfortable life. They cannot keep clean. 
They cannot brush their clothes or comb their hair, they 
cannot take their shoes off their poor tired feet. These 
men gather there in the great meetings, and among them 
are many that are in the last stages of physical weakness. 
Many of them ought to be in the hospital instead of walk- 
ing the street day and night. Many of them are dying of 
hunger. Sometimes we cannot get men to understand 
that we have people in our meetings that are dying of 
hunger. I am not using any figure of speech. It is not 
an unheard-of thing for men to drop dead in our meet- 
ings. That is why we have the 'bread line.' We dare not 
fail to help these people. People sometimes come to us 
with the very best of intentions, talking to us of the sin 
of indiscriminate charity ; but, bless your life ! is not God 
indiscriminate, for does not He cause the rain to fall on 
the just and unjust? Did Jesus Christ ever go through 



86 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

the hungry crowds and find out who was worthy and who 
was unworthy? Did He not spend His Hfe to help just 
such men ? These dear people some of them are spending 
seventy-five cents to find out where the other twenty-five 
cents is to go. I have made up my mind that if I ever 
find a man dying on my doorstep of hunger, and I can 
do anything to save him, I am going to do it, whether he 
deserves it or whether he does not. 

"That is the origin of our bread line about which you 
have heard so much. We cannot help but have a bread 
line. In fact, I refuse to allow our work to be called a 
charity. It is not a charity, it is brotherly kindness. It 
is not a charity, but a kind hospitality, just a little evi- 
dence, just a little token, that there is somebody who 
cares for their poor weary hearts which these destitute 
brothers of ours possess. As long as the bread line ex- 
ists, and God helping, it shall exist as long as there is 
need for it, people must know that there is something 
wrong with our social system, a problem that we cannot 
solve but that is up to the politician. As long as we are 
in this great, rich country with all the extravagances of 
wealth, then the bread line shall tell that there is some- 
thing wrong, and that our Declaration of Independence, 
declaring, as it does, for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness,' is but a delusion and a snare." 

This seems a long interlude to the Penny Lunch chap- 
ter, but you can see the lunch counter where five cents 
can buy beans, bread and cofifee, saves many a man from 
feeling that he takes charity. The bread line was insti- 
tuted to fortify a man's stomach against needing to go 
to the saloon in the morning for the free lunch, also to 
give strength to a poor fellow so he could search for 
work. 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 87 

The bread line food given each morning will not of 
itself sustain life, as we found out to our sorrow. One 
Tuesday night, as the writer entered the Mission for the 
purpose of conducting the service, I found the men at 
the door excited. On inquiry, I found a man lying on the 
front seat dying. The Emergency Hospital ambulance 
had already been called. I found a man who twenty 
years ago had been a leading patent attorney of this city. 
I saw the soul was about to depart. I said, "Mr. West, 
say, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' " "No, I have lived 
wicked, I shall die wicked." "O son, say, 'Lord Jesus, 
forgive me.' " "Too late, too late ; I have heard you all, 
night after night, and I have rejected Christ. I must 
die as I have lived." 

I motioned the choir to sing softly, "Jesus receiveth 
sinful men." I bent over him, urging repentance; the 
ambulance men were at my side, they picked him up and 
laid him carefully on the stretcher. I said, "Dear Mr. 
West, we are praying for you, pray for yourself." I kept 
my hand tenderly on his head as the stretcher was slowly 
carried out, but he continued to say, "Too late, too late 
for me." 

He died within an hour, and the post-mortem showed 
he had died of inanition caused by slow starvation. We 
found he had tried to live on the bread and coffee of the 
bread line alone; he was too poor to buy food, too proud 
to tell his needs, and we were too stupid and too busy 
to realize his awful need. We thereby learned a good 
lesson, and the Superintendent and helpers now all look 
more carefully after the man who sits down claiming 
either exhaustion or sickness. 

No man, woman or child is ever refused food because 
without money, but if a man can buy whisky, we think 



88 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

he ought to be able to buy food, though even then we look 
after him. 

We cannot leave the granting of food to employees, 
so when the Superintendent and his wife are absent we 
have some pathetic cases. Mr. Gordon found a little fel- 
low crying at the door. "What is the matter, little man ?" 
said the big man. "Mother gave me ten cents to buy 
food for our family, and I have lost the money." You 
may be sure Mr. Gordon obtained much more than ten 
cents' worth of food for the child. Very many families 
live in one furnished room and get all their food at the 
penny lunch counter. Seamstresses, all the dollar a day 
men for many squares, girls from the Agricultural Seed 
Bureau, come in and buy at cost the luncheon at the mid- 
dle of the day. Many well-to-do people come in and 
take luncheon to watch the various grades of humanity 
who solve the cost of high living by taking meals at the 
Mission. All the street peddlers, the umbrella man, the 
shoestring and pencil man, the rag gatherers, eat at the 
counter, the better class sit at the tables. 

Mr. Gordon saw a little altercation between a waiter 
and a customer, the waiter demanding four cents while 
the man had but three cents. "But you should not have 
ordered food unless you could pay for it." The poor 
man looked dreadfully embarrassed, at last he looked up 
and said, "Will you lend me a cent, sir?" which was 
gladly done. 

Many who come only for the cheap meal are induced 
by the kindness shown and by the good music and bright 
lights in the chapel, to go in to the services. There some 
song, some word from the speaker, some devout prayer, 
touches the chord of memory of what a mother, a faith- 
ful teacher or almost forgotten preacher has taught years 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 89 

ago, and, backed by the Holy Spirit, a prodigal son or a 
prodigal daughter returns to the Father's house. 

Mr. Kline reports the meals furnished in the Penny 
Lunch Room from May 12, 19 12, to May, 19 13, to be 
87,856, at an average cost of four and one-third cents per 
meal. 

THE DISPENSARY 

was Opened February i, 1912, after the need was very 
apparent, and further neglect of this branch of work 
seemed impossible. 

Never will I forget the day when I first called up Dr. 
C. H. Bowker, one of the leading physicians of the city, 
living on Massachusetts Avenue, near Thomas Circle, the 
very heart of the city, and told him of a man who had 
pneumonia, and of a woman in the shelter with a severe 
cold, and asked him to go to the Mission free of charge. 
I waited with bated breath for the reply. It was, "I am 
an exceedingly busy man, but I shall try to go within an 
hour." Very much emboldened, I said, "Could you stop 
in once a day to see if anyone there has a contagious 
disease, or if anyone should be sent immediately to the 
hospital?" 

The answer seemed very slow, and I fairly trembled, 
for our need was so great. At last he said, "Well, I 
have noticed if I put a duty on my daily program, I 
manage in some way to get it in." From that day to this 
that blessed doctor has been at the beck and call of the 
Mission day and night; only God knows what a help 
and a comfort he has been to broken men and sorrowful 
women in that part of the city. 

The February Gospel Tidings, of 1912, had the fol- 
lowing : 



QO TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

GOSPEL MISSION DISPENSARY 

"For several months we have had a house physician, 
and the use and need for him has steadily increased. The 
establishment of regular hours at which patients could 
see the doctor, and a proper place for consultation, natur- 
ally suggested the establishment of a dispensary. This 
appeared feasible to the Executive Committee, and Mrs. 
Monroe, Superintendent Kline and Dr. Bowker were ap- 
pointed a committee to. study the advisability of such an 
addition to our work. The report from this committee 
was favorable to the project, and active steps were at 
once taken to the establishment of a free general dis- 
pensary for the treatment of all classes of cases, or their 
reference, where necessary, to special institutions. 

"The location of the Mission for dispensary work 
could not be better from any point of view. It is accessi- 
ble to the hundreds needing its help. There is no con- 
flict in its field by any other institution doing this class 
of work. Four rooms on the first floor of the Mission, 
with the chapel for a waiting-room, will serve admirably 
for dispensary needs at present. And these rooms are 
rapidly being put in shape by carpenters and painters. 
Shelves are being made for the pharmacy, a door cut 
through the partition, and running water is to be in- 
stalled. 

"Our printing plant will again demonstrate its useful- 
ness by furnishing the necessary record blanks, labels, 
treatment cards, etc. 

"The Executive Committee has placed Dr. Charles 
Harvey Bowker, 1204 Massachusetts Avenue, in full 
charge of the Gospel Mission Dispensary, and he will 
have associated with him at first Dr. O. C. Cox, 1320 
Eleventh Street, N. W. A number of leading physicians 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 9I 

and surgeons have evinced an interest and willingness to 
give their services, and Dr. Bowker will add them to the 
dispensary staff and assign them work as the clinic grows 
and they are needed. 

"Dr. Bowker's experience in managing a hospital in his 
home city, and his hospital and dispensary work in Wash- 
ington, assure us a businesslike management of this new 
branch of our work. 

"Our need at present is for drugs and surgical dress- 
ing, and it isi hoped that the druggists of the city may 
contribute. 

"The dispensary opened Thursday, February i, 1912, 
at 10 A.M., which will be the regular daily hour, and all 
those who are interested are invited to inspect the new 
rooms." 

You notice that we opened February i, 1912, and our 
annual report in May Tidings, 19 13, shows the follow- 
ing: 

THE MISSION FREE DISPENSARY 
Staff 
Physician in charge, Dr. Charles H. Bowker, 1204 Massachu- 
setts Avenue, N. W. 

Associates 
Dr. OHver C. Cox, 1320 Eleventh Street, N. W. 
Dr. W. O. Owen, Southern Building. 
Dr. William F. Hemler, 706 Eighth Street, N. W. 
Dr. C. A. Simpson, 1217 Connecticut Avenue, N. W. 
Dr. C. F. Dufour, 1347 L Street, N. W. 

Dr. Adam Kemble, Cecil Apartments, Fifteenth and L Streets, 
N. W. 
Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh, The Portner. 

Hours for Treatment 
Medical and surgical cases treated daily, 11 to 12 a.m. 
Diseases of Women — Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 



92 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Diseases of Men — Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. 
Diseases of Children — Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 
Diseases of Ear, Eye, Nose and Throat — Monday and Thurs- 
day. 

Report for the Year Bnding April so, 1913 

Cases treated 2500 

Referred to Hospital 80 

Treated at homes 80 

The dispensary is in need of a sterilizer and a special 
fund for medical supplies for those too poor to pay. 

The sterilizer later was the gift of Dr. Jesse Rams- 
burgh, and we have a complete set of lenses for testing 
the eyes of school children. 

It would break your heart to see the women with 
babies, the aged on crutches, the hosts of children, the 
aged victims of every vice, now broken and often re- 
pentant, seek the aid of these good men. Often we run 
short of remedies. "What do they do then?" you ask. 
Well, they simply go down in their own pockets and buy 
the necessities, and no one is turned empty away. 

Think of a procession of sick and needy persons, 2500 
human beings in line, and you will see in your mind 
what that blessed dispensary has done for the sorrowful 
of this city in one year. 

I wish I dare to tell you the particulars of one of these 
great physicians who had not been living close to God, 
seeing our work of faith, seeing how the Mission people 
lay their many needs before a patient God, who meets 
every demand in answer to their prayer, and possibly 
feeling that in a mission he could not minister to a mind 
diseased without himself being in touch with the living 
God, was led to revise his views, make public confession 
of his faith and enlist in God's organized method of 



THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 93 

evangelizing the world by joining the church. We all 
need God, but the hand that reaches down to help sinful 
men must have the other hand clasped close in God's 
strong hand if he would do effective work. 



CHAPTER X 
The Power of the Gospel 

St. Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation." 

Yes, the gospel is the power. The soul is as dead as a 
street car with the power gone, till it is touched by that 
special power. I could kneel at the side of a sinner and 
quote the very best things of Shakespeare or Milton, 
and the soul would step to no higher ground; but when 
the right verse of God's word is shown with the New 
Testament in hand, and the Holy Spirit makes that soul 
see that the passage before him is God's recorded wire- 
less message for his soul alone, the power comes on and 
that verse again proves true, "But as many as received 
Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on His name," and a soul is 
born into the kingdom of God. Dan Crawford, the great 
missionary to Africa, says not Livingstone, not Taylor, 
not Dan Crawford, are the real pioneer missionaries, but 
the Spirit of God Himself, and when the word is brought 
to a prepared soul it is a spark of powder. He tells of 
one besotted Negro who read John's Gospel. The Negro 
said, "I was startled that Christ could speak Chulba; I 
heard Him speak out of the printed page, and what He 
said to me was, 'Follow me.' " Mr. Crawford says, 
"When the guncotton of John's Gospel came in contact 
with the tinder of his rebellion, he was literally exploded 
into the kingdom," and by continuing to study St. John's 

(94) 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL 95 

Gospel the transforming power of the gospel made him 
a good earnest Christian man, fit for the companionship 
of good people. 

At a rescue mission we have such scenes almost every 
night of the year. In our case it is usually the word first 
implanted in the human heart either at a mother's knee 
or by some Sunday school teacher, or by a faithful 
preacher in early life, then the very room of the Mission 
is filled with the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayers of 
God's people. Now, when a heart-broken, world-buffeted 
sinner comes into the room, the words or music of some 
song, or the presentation of God's word, is used by God's 
Spirit to bring to memory all the sinner has known of 
these things ; he hears redeemed men tell how God cured 
them of lust, of alcoholism, of gambling, of profane lan- 
guage, of all sin; he sees these men well clothed, radi- 
antly happy, and sees and feels his own degradation; is 
it any wonder he drops on his knees and cries out, "Men 
and brethren, what) shall I do to be saved"? When he 
wants God more than he wants deliverance from his be- 
setting sin, when he wants God more than he wants his 
deserted wife and children, when he wants God for what 
God can do for his poor soul, the God of his soul comes 
down, and at that second the soul passes from death unto 
life eternal, for that soul the decisions of the judgment 
day have been settled, for Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, he that heareth my words and believeth on 
Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not 
come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto 
life." 

That verse comprehended and lived has power enough 
to carry a soul through all besetments into the very pres- 
ence of God. 



9^ TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

THE CASE OF MR. ABBOTT 

During the winter of 1910, there came into the Gospel 
Mission a man, ragged, soiled, blear-eyed, doped and 
utterly down and out; he came only for the coffee and 
rolls given Sunday night. Before coming up the steps 
he had said to a friend, "I don't want to hear any of their 
blank sermons, but I am starving." He heard no sermon, 
instead he received a warm hand-shake, he heard bright 
singing, but, best of all, he heard redeemed men tell how 
God had saved them from the alcohol habit, till he cried 
out, "If God has power to save me from the sin of drink, 
I want God!" He kneeled and poured out his soul in 
prayer. As soon as he began to pray aloud, we saw he 
was an educated man. The Spirit came upon him in 
great power, he really had the searchlight of God on his 
soul, and he saw himself for a short time as God saw 
him. Then God forgave him, he rose justified, strong, 
happy, a new man in Christ Jesus. The Mission gave 
him a bed for the night, and the next morning this man, 
who had not worked or desired work for two years, 
begged that we should find a place for him to earn his 
way. He obtained a situation to solicit business for a 
laundry, about as hard work as one can imagine, but he 
made good, and in six months he was made foreman of 
the laundry in which he was employed. He modernized 
its methods and doubled its business by the end of the 
year, and the company made him a present of five 
hundred shares of stock and elected him president of the 
company. Then he received $3000 a year salary, besides 
his percentage of all gains made by the house. His 
friends claim his income is now about $5000 a year. In 
the meantime, after he had been redeemed, probably four 
months, his wife, a most beautiful and accomplished 




CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS 




SETTLEMENT HOUSE 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL 97 

Philadelphia woman, brought their lovely son, aged about 
eight, and they began housekeeping again. The home 
has given needed physical comfort, the companionship 
has given the mental and the spiritual help needed to 
make this former tramp into a first-class citizen. At 
night, during the last winter, he has been studying law 
in one of the university law schools, and on Sunday he 
acts as usher and vestryman in one of the largest Prot- 
estant Episcopal churches. As a child he had been a 
choir boy in a church in Philadelphia. Doubtless the 
knowledge gained there as a child made him able to un- 
derstand his duty to God and man after his conversion 
better far than an ignorant, uninstructed person could 
have done after months of instruction. 

THE PSYCHOLOGY 

of just this case is worth considering. This man was 
spiritually dead, so far as we could see. He did not de- 
sire to live. The people of the Mission had been more 
or less in prayer from three o'clock to eight when this 
man came in. He saw religion in action in the person 
and speech of redeemed men. But even if these testi- 
monies were factors it was the Holy Spirit that did the 
work. It was the divine spark to human tinder, or, as 
Henry Drummond better puts it, "The spiritual world 
reached down and carried this worldly soul into the 
world above it." "He that hath the Son hath life, he 
that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Life de- 
pends upon contact with life, it cannot develop out of 
anything that is not life. 

Even as the physiologist cannot explain how the human 
seed generates in a human body eventually becoming a 
new-born man child, neither can theology fully explain 
7 



9^ TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

how the Holy Spirit can touch a human soul out of which 
wall be born another soul in the same body with marks 
of its divine parentage in every line, or, as St. Paul says, 
a new^ creature in Christ Jesus. 

I heard a distinguished man who had long been in offi- 
cial connection with prisons and reformatories, say, "A 
reformed man is always in danger ; he may stand twenty 
years and then fall back into sin, but a regenerated man 
is as safe from his sinful besetments as if they had not 
been the weakness of his life." 

I fancy I can hear some preacher say, "If it is the word 
and the Holy Spirit do the work, why does not the 
church have as many conversions as a mission?" The 
very first element of spiritual power is lacking in most 
churches. If the preacher, the official members, then 
every member of the church first sought God's special 
blessing in private, then came together offering first 
praise, then united prayer to God from the very depths 
of their hearts, there would be conversions every Sun- 
day in every church. 

Spurgeon and Moody expected conversions every Sun- 
day, and they had them. 

In presenting a soul to Christ no perfunctory Christian 
can do it and have that soul received. To present a per- 
son to the King of England, let us say, the presenter 
needs to be acquainted with the king; so a person un- 
acquainted with God has no power at the throne ; he even 
impedes the soul coming into the light. I have seen many 
a dancing, card-playing Christian at the side of the peni- 
tent, praying earnestly, then rise baffled, troubled, help- 
less ; not able to reach the throne, they had no access to 
God. 

Often people from the States wTite me to present such 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL 99 

and such a paper in person to the President of the United 
States. I am obliged to reply, "I have no access to the 
President of the United States," but I daily thank God 
that I have access to the throne, for I am acquainted with 
God. 

RELIGION WITH THE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENT 

I venture to take the two following short articles from 
the November numbers of 19 13 of the Survey, the most 
valuable weekly magazine which comes to my desk on 
all social questions: 

'^'WHAT ABOUT JEFF ?^^ 

"Jeff is a white boy sixteen years old. I am estimating 
this, as Jeff says he doesn't know how old he is and 
doesn't know his surname. He has every appearance of 
being a little less than half witted. 

"I found Jeff this morning working, with two other 
white boys and ten or twelve Negro boys, as an inmate 
of the County Workhouse. He was carrying stone on 
a public hitch-lot. One of the white boys and two of the 
Negro boys were in chains. 

"Jeff has been in the workhouse for sixty days. He 
was placed there for beating a ride on a railroad train. 
Next Monday Jeff will be released. He will have not a 
cent to his name, not very good clothes, not a relative in 
the country, no place to sleep and nothing to eat. 

"I have put this predicament before our city inter- 
church organization, and we have seen no solution. About 
the best thing we can see for this half-witted boy is that 
he will do something that will again bring him within the 
clutches of the law in order that he may be immediately 
sent back to the workhouse. At the age of sixteen he is 



lOO 

a human derelict, yet he has capacity to work, to love, co 
respect, to enjoy, and to feel sorrow. 

"There is another mentally weak boy in this same 
gang. If we knew what to do with Jeff we might be 
able to do more for the other one. What do you sug- 
gest?" — W. H. Swift, Greensboro, N. C. 

"sue and jeff" 

"What about Jeff?' was shown to a New York set- 
tlement worker. Trint it,' he said, 'in the hope that 
someone may stir up the inter-church organizations of 
Greensboro to find another solution. The question is: 
What about that organization? rather than poor Jeff. 
He is a victim of wrong social conditions, plus his weak 
head ; but if there is no one in his neighborhood Vv^ho can 
see any other solution than the workhouse for a lad who 
has the "capacity to work, to love, to respect, to enjoy 
and to feel sorrow," then I suggest that the community 
is worse off, a good deal, than poor Jeff. To begin with, 
why don't the inter-church organization take him under 
its own wing?' 

"Now, it would be very easy for the inter-church or- 
ganization of Greensboro to take care of Jeff if there 
were only one of him. Unfortunately, there are many 
hundreds of him. How many of the boys of sixteen sent 
to the island from the New York City courts are of 
Jeff's class ? Nobody knows for certain, because nobody 
tries to find out. Those of us who have lived for years 
among defectives and have visited reform schools know 
that the number is large. Yet the inter-church organiza- 
tions of New York City do not take them under their 
wings. 

"The proportion of the feeble-minded Jeffs in various 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL lOI 

reformatories has been to range from twenty to fifty per 
cent of all the inmates. Every intelligent worker with 
prisoners knows there are many weak-minded among 
them ; yet the usual method of treating the defective-de- 
linquent (and every defective is a potential delinquent) 
throughout the United States is to do with them just 
what our Greensboro friend hopes to do with Jeff — send 
him to the workhouse as soon as he commits his next 
petty crime. And we keep on doing it over and over and 
over again. 

"Meanwhile the proper method with the Jeffs and the 
Sues is so simple and plain, so patently economical in 
this generation, and so tremendously profitable for the 
next, that its very simplicity makes it neglected. The 
colony at Templeton, Mass.; the one just organized at 
Menantico, N. J.; the farm colonies at Fort Wayne, 
Ind. ; Lincoln, 111.; Faribault, Minn.; Columbus, Ohio; 
and Letchworth Village, N. Y., all point the way with 
greater or less success. 

"Yet Letchworth Village was enacted by the legisla- 
ture of New York nearly five years ago. Its first com- 
mission reported 29,000 suitable inmates pressing for 
care. To-day it has only 100 inmates; and the Inter- 
church Federation says nothing. 

"It is not worth while to get all stirred up and excited 
about Jeffs in North Carolina. What have we to say 
about the defectives in jails, workhouses, penitentiaries, 
reformatories, and prisons under our noses in New 
York ? Is our beam so big that we cannot see it ?" — Alex- 
ander Johnson, Director Department of Extension, Vine- 
land, N. J. 

Now, that was the churches' opportunity. Federation 



I02 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

work should see that a religious school should be started 
in each community for its Jeffs and Sues. A city rescue 
mission could easily find work for Jeff. 

I saw a Jeff come into the Sunday school of my own 
church. He was a great lumbering chap of eighteen years 
of age, he was not quite clean, there was the odor of the 
unwashed about him. He immediately went to the class 
of about thirty young men of his own age. I was grat- 
ified to see that youth seek the society of the church peo- 
ple rather than the saloon, but he was not welcome with 
the young men. The teacher visited his home, there 
was no help to be expected from the home, so the teacher, 
or the class, whether by actual request or by treatment, 
caused Jeff to stay away. Now, in the great day of ac- 
counts, of whom will that soul be required? If the de- 
fective intellect, what there is of it, can be turned to be- 
lieve God, the defective is prevented from becoming a 
criminal. We have them at the Gospel Mission. The 
very first thing is to have the physician talk to Jeff of the 
sacredness of his own body to absolutely prevent all 
secret habits which injure the body and brain, and the 
motive of self-restraint both for physical habits and for 
drink must be that these things offend a loving Saviour 
who walks with each one of us. 

Each year I meet Dr. H. M. Freas, of Philadelphia, at 
Northfield. His work as a physician frequently takes 
him to the asylum for the insane. He feels most keenly 
that these institutions should be in the hands of Christian 
people only. Many a brilliant intellect could be restored 
to perfect sanity if the loving care of some saintly Prot- 
estant sisterhood or brotherhood were in charge to bring 
the human love, which even the sanest of us need, to 
bear on the tottering brain. These human deficients are 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL IO3 

found in the public schools; as soon as discovered they 
should be transferred to a religious school where they 
can be scientifically studied, what intellect they have de- 
veloped, and the religious side of each one fostered. If 
then they are found permanently deficient, especially in 
the moral sense, or in physical self-control, then they 
should be segregated on farms for the sake of the race. 
People of deficient brains become fanatics ; now, if these 
unbalanced people become filled with an enthusiasm of 
righteousness they absolutely do much good. They con- 
stitute three-fourths of the street preachers, and they 
reach many a soul who never enters a church. Religion 
prevents insanity. There is no doubt that fanaticism run 
riot leads to the asylum. We had one man who was in- 
sufficiently fed, badly clothed, who spent the entire night 
in prayer, two or three nights of the week. Of course, 
he brought up in the insane asylum, but when he had 
food enough at the asylum where he was not permitted 
to pray aloud, he soon became normal, and was set free. 
It taught him a needed lesson. 

But religion sustains us through the breaking ties of 
life, through the loss of fortune, through the defec- 
tion of friends, through blasted hopes, through the an- 
guish of children going wrong, and their punishment by 
the State which follows. 

Religion holds many a woman whose son is a wan- 
derer, either criminal or otherwise, from insanity. I 
know a woman who has not looked into the face of her 
wandering son for six years. She stands up and sings 
with radiant face, "I am going through whatever others 
do, I am going through with Jesus," and in spite of what 
looks an unbearable sorrow, leads a useful and appar- 
ently happy life. A mission is a blessed thing for enthu- 



I04 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

siasts. It sends them with flowers and literature to hos- 
pitals and jails; it sends food to private families in need, 
it gives the enthusiasts tracts to distribute, it puts musi- 
cal instruments into their hands and says, "Praise the 
Lord with pleasant sounds," it sets women to repairing 
clothing for the poor, to caring for little children, while 
mothers earn money for food. As we do these things 
we talk religion, we tell of Jesus, the friend of sinners, 
we make a steady effort in very many directions to have 
each soul brought into harmony with God. In almost 
every instance where sorrow in a family has been the 
result of sin, and Jesus is allowed to become to each of 
them a personal Saviour, the home is electrified by a new 
enthusiasm, the parents become efficient, self-supporting, 
happy; the children become self-respecting, are taken 
from the class needing help, and become helpers. Reli- 
gion eases the burden of life and heals the welts of ad- 
versity. 

We have in Washington a club known as 'The Mon- 
day Evening Club," a clearing house for all forms of phi- 
lanthropy. At the different banquets and at their 
monthly meetings all forms of reforms, from purely a 
humanitarian standpoint, are discussed, but we, who go 
at the open sores of the world with the only sure cure 
earth has yet received, the religion of Jesus Christ, we 
receive no recognition, we are given no hearing at ban- 
quets, and are never spoken of as part of the city's force 
for betterment, yet we comfort the prisoner, we bring 
hope to the hopeless, and we are the real protection of 
the city. No hungry man is turned from our door un- 
satisfied. A hungry man is a danger, a man with a hun- 
gry family is a menace. He will get food even if it costs 
a life to obtain it. Like Him whom we serve we are re- 



THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL IO5 

jected of men. We work amid the social dynamite of a 
great city. Unless the religious part of this nation as- 
sumes its rightful place as arbiter in all labor troubles, 
saying to the rich man, "Thou shalt not defraud," and 
to the poor man, "Thou shalt do no violence"; unless 
Christian people see to it that remunerative labor can be 
had by every person willing to work; unless Christian 
people close the saloons (the author of seventy-five per 
cent of the sufferings of the poor), on some sad day our 
great cities will be systematically dynamited. As Chris- 
tians we must go down among them and make the broken 
man feel that he is only temporarily sidetracked from 
the great highway of success. That the grace of God 
and his own will can and will bring him back to the great 
highway of prosperity. 

The Church is waking up to its full duty in social serv- 
ice. Bishop Simpson, even in his day, eloquently de- 
scribed the mission of the Church in the world: "The 
Church must grope her way into the alleys and courts 
and purlieus of the city, and up the broken staircase, and 
into the bare room and beside the loathsome sufferer; 
she must go down into the pit with the miner, into the 
forecastle with the sailor, into the tent with the soldier, 
into the shop with the mechanic, into the factory with the 
operative, into the field with the farmer, into the count- 
ing-room with the merchant. Like the air, the Church 
must press equally on all the surfaces of society ; like the 
sea, flow into every nook of the shoreline of humanity, 
and, like the sun, shine on things foul and low, as well as 
fair and high, for she was organized, commissioned and 
equipped for the moral renovation of the world." 

In closing this chapter we cannot do better than to 
quote from the fourth volume of the Jewish Encyclo- 



Io6 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

pedia, which pays this remarkable tribute to Christianity : 
"Christianity, following the matchless ideals of its 
Christ, redeemed the despised and outcast, and ennobled 
suffering. It checked infanticide, and founded asylums 
for the young. It removed the curse of slavery by mak- 
ing the humblest bondsmen proud of being a child of 
God. It fought against the cruelties of the arena, it in- 
vested the home with purity and proclaimed the value of 
each human soul as a treasure in the eyes of God, and it 
so leavens the great masses of the empire as to render the 
cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place 
of the Roman eagle. 

"The Galilean entered the world as a conqueror. The 
Church became the educator of pagan nations; and one 
race after another was brought under her tutorship. The 
Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton and the 
Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth 
the first Apostles, also set the missionaries aglow, and 
brought all Europe and Africa, and finally the American 
continent, under the scepter of an omnipotent Church. 
Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end, the 
establishment of the brotherhood of man and the father- 
hood of God." 



CHAPTER XI 

Hereditary Sin 

It was an exceedingly cold night when Jake Grossman 
burst into the mission, having on the apparel of a hotel 
cook. He did not take a seat, but marched to the front 
and prostrated himself at the altar, crying, ''God be mer- 
ciful to me, a sinner." In such cases, no difference what 
we are doing, all formal program is suspended and we go 
at once to prayer. Jake was in deep earnest, men and 
women acquainted with God kneeled all about him, pre- 
senting his case to the Saviour of men. We did not then 
know his special need, but a soul in the depth of con- 
viction wanted God, not for one sin, but he needed 
cleansing from all the sins of his past life. It must have 
been an hour before that soul received light. The choir 
had sung softly, "I 'm coming home to-night," and like 
melodies; others had come to the altar, been forgiven 
and gone to their seats, when Jake Grossman rose to his 
feet and rejoiced that he had found peace and pardon 
through the blood of Christ. 

We found afterwards that Grossman was the son of 
the great Swiss engineer, who had planned the great tun- 
nel through the Alps, whose genius had built bridges over 
roaring, impassable canyons, who had planned the elec- 
tric roads in all parts of Switzerland, until he was wined 
and dined by scientists not only in his own country but in 
many countries, so that he had acquired the alcoholic 
habit, after which his brain became sluggish and at last 
he fell from his high estate, became a common drunkard 

(107) 



I08 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

and died poor. The memory of the wicked shall perish. 

While he was yet prosperous, using expensive wines, 
his only legitimate son was born. The mother noticed 
that, as a child of six or seven, Jake wanted a sip every 
time wine was used on the table ; by twelve he could drink 
a large glass of wine and not show drunkenness. By his 
twentieth year Jake was a drunkard, the father dead, the 
mother poor and heart-broken. Friends and relatives all 
advised sending Jake to America, where wine is not used 
on the table, and also to get Jake away from old com- 
panions. 

He came with letters to good people, but alcoholism is 
not baffled by change of location. His money gave out, 
the people to whom he had been introduced refused to 
receive him. Fortunately his mother had taught him to 
cook, so he obtained a place as an assistant cook in a 
Washington hotel; later he developed into a first-class 
chef. When he came to the Mission he had been dis- 
charged for drunkenness, and now, being a redeemed 
man, he went back to the hotel, gave up his white cloth- 
ing, gathered up his belongings, and sought other work. 

That was five years ago. Jake has often been asked 
by the hotels of this city to cook for them at a salary of 
$ioo or more a month, but Jake daily prays, "Lead us 
not into temptation," and he does not knowingly walk 
into it. He shovels coal at a wage of $io per week. He 
says, "You see, it keeps me in the open air ; I do not have 
to taste wine or smell it; I get black on the outside, but 
I keep white within, which was more than I did as a 
cook." 

All the heroes are not in high places. "He that ruleth 
his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." We be- 
lieve God cleansed Jake Grossman from inherited sin. 



HEREDITARY SIN IO9 

HEREDITY 

I see that scientists are now claiming that a tendency 
to use alcohol is not hereditary. We who work among 
alcoholics know that it is. God says that the sins of the 
fathers shall be visited on the children unto the third 
and fourth generation, and they are. God gives a high 
premium for virtue to all who would take the responsi- 
bility of bringing another life into the world. 

I remember a man converted at the Breakfast Associa- 
tion, Philadelphia. I had spoken on the power of God 
to take away even inherited tendencies of sin from our 
souls. A young chap in the audience sent an usher to ask 
me to see him in the after meeting. I went down the aisle 
till I stood by his side. He said, "Can God save me from 
drink? My father was a saloon-keeper and died drunk. 
My mother died a drunkard; she fed me beer as an in- 
fant. I am now twenty-two years old; I do not remem- 
ber a day in my life that I have not used beer." Look- 
ing over that blear-eyed crowd, he said, "I do not want 
an old age like these wretches. Do you know that I 
recognize among these bloats at least twenty men who 
are the sons of saloon-keepers ? You Christians have not 
yet discovered that no man puts liquor to his neighbor's 
lips without destroying his own family. Now, can God 
save me from the sin and shame of the old age of an 
alcoholic paralytic?" 

"Well, let us go to the altar and ask Him." We knelt 
long at the altar. At last he claimed that he had been 
accepted of God. As he started to leave the hall he came 
back and said, "Do pray for me ; I am afraid of the smells 
of the street; I am afraid of my old companions. Pray 
for me." 

"W^ell," I said, "you come home with me, you are 



no TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

young enough to be my son. If you were, I would want 
some good woman to mother you." The next day I took 
him to Lancaster, Pa., where at that time I had a num- 
ber of acquaintances among business men. I took him 
to quite a number before I came to a man who 
would take him at all, and to a number who would 
take him but not agree to help save a soul. At 
last I came to a Christian man in the leather business, 
who agreed to take him into his family, instruct him in 
the very rudiments of religion, take him to church and 
Sunday school with him; in fact, to nourish this new- 
born soul in Christ. We prayed together, then I left him. 
For a very short time I received a postal-card each week, 
which I failed to answer; then, amid the cares of a very 
busy life, I forgot him. About three years after that I 
was walking along a street in Lancaster when a fine- 
looking chap came rushing from behind me, and, placing 
his arm over my shoulder, said, "Oh, God bless you! 
God bless you !" 

I turned and found a fine-looking man with tear- 
dimmed eyes blessing me. "Son," I said, "what is your 
name ?" 

"Oh! do you not know me? I have prayed for you 
every day for three years, and you have forgotten me." 

"Well," I said, "I fancy you are so much better look- 
ing to-day than you were then so that your own mother 
might not know you now." 

I walked back to the leather store with him and found 
my friend behind the counter. "Mr. S." I said, "is John 
Schmidt a good man ?" 

He did not wait to go around the counter, but, com- 
ing right over it, he placed a hand on each of John's 
shoulders as he said, "I am glad to bear witness that 



HEREDITARY SIN III 

John is a true, good man. At first he was sorely tried 
to associate only with our kind of people, but he has 
worked all day, gone to school at night, gone to church 
and Sunday school every Sunday, and he is about to 
marry one of the best young women of our church." 
God had done a perfect work of grace, and the hereditary 
drunkard became a good man and a useful citizen. It 
must be so, for the word says the blood of Christ Jesus 
cleanses from all sin. 

MR. KLINE^S TESTIMONY 

On the evening of September i6, 19 13, Mr. Kline, our 
Superintendent of the Gospel Mission, gave, in substance, 
the following: 

"It is ten years ago to-night since God, for Christ's sake, 
forgave my sins. It was a day like this has been, a per- 
fect day in September. I had become a confirmed drunk- 
ard, so that every waking moment I kept myself under 
the influence of whisky. I was a good workman, but I 
was conscious that my strength had gone. Three days 
before I had been attacked with a trembling which 
seemed like palsy. As I looked in the glass I saw the 
face of a dying man. The barkeeper saw it. He said, 
'Kline, take a drink; you will shake to pieces.' It took 
four or five drinks to make my hand steady enough to 
work. Then the barkeeper said, *Now you need work 
to bring you to strength. You may paper and fix up 
this bar-room.' I went to a paper house, selected my 
paper, and had the man make a bill four times what it 
should have been. The bill was paid and I went back to 
the paper store and got my rake-off. You see, I had be- 
come dishonest as well as a drunkard. I had been 
brought up in a Lutheran household in Harrisburg by a 



112 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Christian aunt, who was a member of old Zion Luth- 
eran Church. 

"My mother had died in my infancy. I never saw her 
to remember her appearance; I never saw a likeness of 
her, a lock of hair or a garment which she had worn ; but 
when dying she left a message with my aunt, a message 
which never left me, even when I was farthest from 
God. It was these words, *Bring up my boy to meet me 
in heaven.* It was those words which really brought me 
back to my mother's God. 

"When I quit work in that saloon that i6th day of 
September, 1903, I was all in. I saw my face in the 
mirror over the bar, and when I am dead I shall not be 
more colorless. The barkeeper filled my bottle, and in- 
stead of going, as usual, to my home in the southwest, 
I made my way up Four-and-a-half Street. I was simply 
impelled by an unseen force. Behind every tree I took 
a nip from the bottle, till I came to Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue. Then I knew I dared not drink where a policeman 
would see me; so, hardly knowing where I was or what 
I was doing, I staggered to the old bank corner at 
Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They tell me 
I disturbed the meeting, but when they adjourned to 
the Mission Hall I followed weeping and crying, T shall 
not go out of this hall till I am dead or saved.' 

"I have been told by Brothers Gordon and Wheeler 
that no drunkard we have ever seen disgrace himself in 
this mission ever behaved worse than I did. God gave 
them that night the grace of patience. 

"I cried to God, This poor man cried, and God heard 
him.' I rose to my feet, sobered and in my right mind. 
I gave the bottle to Brother Bratz, and when I got out on 
the street I threw away my cigarettes and tobacco, and 




'Ii'#fl 



BOY SCOUTS 




CAMP FIRE GIRLS 



HEREDITARY SIN II 3 

from that 'day to this I have not touched or tasted either 
liquor or tobacco. The next morning my hand was as 
steady as it is this minute. While I was wondering what to 
do, a rap came to the door. It was the saloon man's mes- 
senger, telling me to come and finish my job. I was 
weak, but I was praying. In the meantime Satan was 
giving me the battle of my life. The devil is a hard loser. 
He said, 'Well, if God could keep Daniel in the lions' 
den, and the Hebrews in the fiery furnace. He could 
surely keep you in the saloon.' 

"But God has done better than that for me. He has 
kept me out of the saloon. In my distress of mind as to 
whether I should finish that job or go for my tools, I 
picked up my wife's Bible and I opened at these words, 
Tear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee 
by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through 
the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, 
they shall not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through 
the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame 
kindle upon thee.' It was a message straight from 
heaven to my soul. I so accepted it. 

"I never finished the job. I never went after my tools, 
and from that day to this I have not entered a saloon. 
Satan has camped on my trail many times. I have had 
trials and temptations, but God has delivered me from 
the sins of the flesh, whisky, tobacco and their accom- 
panying sins. No man who has been a drunkard can ever 
again safely use tobacco. An experience of ten years in 
mission work, where I have seen thousands of souls born 
into the kingdom, convinces me that the convert who 
retains tobacco will surely slip back. Christ's redeeming 
blood cleanses from all sin. 

"I was a good workman and I soon had permanent 
8 



114 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

work. I never failed to make the arrangement before I 
entered into a contract that I was not to be expected to 
enter a saloon or any other disreputable place." 

That was Mr. Kline's testimony, and I would like to 
say for him that God greatly uses him and his testimony 
to bring fallen men back to God. He is an acceptable 
preacher of righteousness in almost any pulpit in this 
city, and he has done acceptable evangelistic work in 
many large eastern cities. His presence in the Gospel 
Mission, we believe, is helpful to all the men who come 
under its roof. He is an honored member of the Luther 
Memorial Church. 

I reaffirm, as long as one man dead in sin can be trans- 
formed into a living, active, aggressive Christian, the 
words of the Scripture are as true to-day as when the 
angel said, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall 
save His people from their sins." Nothing now known 
to science can accomplish what happened to Mr. H. W. 
Kline that night; that is, as Prof. James so pertinently 
says, "Conversion is the only means by which a radically 
bad person can be changed into a radically good person." 

Harold Begbie, as a psychologist, says: "Whatever 
we may think of the phenomenon itself, the fact stands 
clear and unassailable that by this thing called conver- 
sion, men consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, be- 
come consciously right, superior and happy. It produces 
not a change but a revolution. It creates a new person- 
ality." We would say a new creature in Christ Jesus. 

The religion of Christ differs from all other religions. 
They take the rich, the happy, the successful, as their 
expositors, but Christ takes the broken, the sorrowful, 
the beaten in the race, and makes them the rich, the suc- 
cessful and the happy expositors of His religion. 



HEREDITARY SIN 



115 



EMOTION IN RELIGION 

Prof. H. W. Wynn, D.D., one of the great writers of 
the Lutheran Observer, has these wise words concerning 
the elements of emotion in rehgion : 

"We have discovered that rehgion as a purely emo- 
tional experience may have no religion in it at all, though 
kindled by the emotional stimuH that religion commands. 
There is an emotional element in religion, of course, deep, 
powerful, pervasive; and when you give way to it, en- 
veloping your whole being as in an atmosphere of flame. 
Those tender feelings which enter so largely into the 
deeper currents of our domestic and social life — love, 
pity, joy, hope, the striking of the glad hand, comrade- 
ship locking arms under the same great banner to do 
deeds of heroism in the same great cause — religion calls 
them all up, and fires them all with a conquering zeal. 

"But, manifestly, the zeal may burn out before the 
deeds of heroism have been begun. We have learned 
to know that the same emotional fires may be kindled 
when religion is not the theme. A great crowd, an 
orator of fluent and persuasive speech, music filling the 
air with the imaginary shouts of an "lo triumphe" come 
to stay — it matters very little what may be the occasion 
that has called these people together, the emotional part 
of their campaign has been achieved. But, whether in 
religion or in politics, it would be stupidly unwise to con- 
clude that the excitement itself was the end to be at- 
tained — emotion being set down as the deed itself ; or, in 
some way, an assured equivalent of the deed. 

"In all such cases fanaticism is the result, and fanati- 
cism has never been an aid, but always, in the long run, 
an embarrassment to any great cause. Fanaticism stops 



Il6 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

with the excitement — absurdly confounds excitement 
with the cause to be maintained. 

"In religion, especially, this unhappy 'transvaluation of 
value* is likely to be made. For long ages it has been 
systematically taught that the emotional element in re- 
ligion either summed it all up or was an unmistakable 
token that, then and there, it had been all summed up for 
us in the exchequer of the skies. The great transaction 
had passed, the thing was done when your religious 
ecstasy swelled to the highest, and you found yourself, 
as you confidently believed, borne on its billows to the 
bosom of God." 

Now, we all recognize this emotional element only as a 
helpful factor in religion, but not a permanent element. 
I have seen a few men accept Christ without any emo- 
tion whatever. I remember a blue-eyed, fair complex- 
ioned man saying, "I have no especial emotion. I am 
truly sorry for my sins. I confess them now and here, 
and I claim i John i : 9, 'If we confess our sins He is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness.* I ask God to cleanse me. 
I need it and accept it, because He has said so." Tracy 
lived all right as long as we knew of him. If converts 
made in evangelistic meetings were taken into careful 
Bible school, they would develop into useful Christians, 
and there would be no backsliding. 

Now, religion, in the sense in which we use it, is a 
"building" process, not "inflation," as the aeronaut would 
inflate his balloon. We all know the class of religionists 
who hop, jump and shout in religious meetings ; they are 
so busy they do not see the basket as it passes; they give 
no money, they do nothing that the world would call 
religious except these physical manifestations. They are 



HEREDITARY SIN II 7 

intolerant to all who do not believe as they do, they are 
simply to be tolerated and petted along as deficients who 
mean well but cannot be counted as part of the great 
organized force of believers which God is using to bring 
about the kingdom of God until by training and experi- 
ence they can be used among their own class. But, 
among these, every now and then there comes a man of 
good mentality but without education, whom God can 
use. His church has no room for him, yet he has the 
same orders that Jesus gave to the eleven, "Go ye and 
preach the gospel to every nation," and we find him 
preaching on the side streets, later a hall or church is 
hired, and we have a new sect. 

You remember Jane Addams tells of the young col- 
lege graduate who had taken a course in a Bible training 
school and in a school of philanthropy, who, on her re- 
turn home, asked the rector for religious work, and he 
replied, "You might arrange the flowers on the pulpit 
each Sunday." Think of that to a soul aflame with 
God! 

Macaulay touches off this kind of blindness in his 
essay -on "Ranke's History of the Popes," in this way : 
"Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant en- 
thusiasts whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, 
and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most 
dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a cham- 
pion; she bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a 
gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope around 
his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He 
costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the 
revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms 
of those who respect his spiritual cjiaracter and are grate- 
ful for his instructions. He preaches not exactly in the 



Il8 TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA 

Style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the pas- 
sions of the uneducated hearers, and all his influence is 
employed to strengthen the church of which he is a 
minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly at- 
tached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages 
and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the 
Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in her- 
self all the strength of establishment, and all the strength 
of dissent. Even for female agencies there is a place in 
her system for devout women ; she assigns them spiritual 
functions, dignities and magistracies." 

How different from these enthusiasts who have not 
entered a church for years ; their stock in trade is largely 
vituperation of the churches until they are trained into 
a better understanding of relative social service. The 
Church is doing the real Christian work of the world in 
keeping people from going wrong. Missions and their 
branches only hope to catch the driftwood of humanity 
before it floats out into the great ocean of eternity. 

But every church in the land should have an invest- 
ment in money or personal representatives in the nearest 
city rescue mission. The young people of the churches 
should be the choirs of the missions. They will get in- 
spiration as to how to do work for God in securing 
the conversion of every soul committed to their care in 
the church and community work. 



nu 
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